Why go
This phase connects two features of the landscape: the engineered summit and the clock below it. It also brings Jamaican Maroon labour into the history of the defences. The fortress was largely earthwork, so the surviving stone Citadel should not be mistaken for the fort that stood here during the War of 1812.
The full story
The French Revolutionary Wars, beginning in 1793, brought another round of defensive work to Halifax. A new Citadel was designed in 1794 and completed by 1800. Builders lowered and levelled the summit to accommodate a larger fortress. Four bastions surrounded central barracks and a magazine, anticipating the outline of the later fort while relying mainly on earthwork walls. Jamaican Maroons contributed labour to one of the bastions. The Town Clock belongs to this same period of change. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, commissioned it in 1800 before returning to England. It opened on 20 October 1803 on the eastern slope of Citadel Hill. Consider it separately from the Victorian masonry fortress above: it predates that fourth Citadel. During the War of 1812, the third fort received hurried repairs and a new magazine. British naval superiority reduced the threat of an American siege. The hill’s story at this stage combines altered terrain, military construction and a public timekeeper that became part of Halifax’s everyday landscape.