The spelling
The Danish spelling is Fredensborg; English sources sometimes write Fredensburg. Not to be confused with Frederiksborg — the Danish fort at Amanful, Cape Coast, later Fort Royal.
Header Photo - at Richter Fort Osu, Accra
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Denmark called it Fredensborg — the fort of peace — and built it in 1734 to buy and ship people. A hundred years later a single man was left there to keep the flag flying. When the British took it over in 1850, they took over a ruin. Today it is one of the least visited World Heritage sites in Ghana, an hour from Accra.
Fredensborg means "castle of peace" in Danish. The name was borrowed from a royal palace in Denmark, and it was about as wrong as a name can be. The fort Denmark built at Old Ningo in 1734 was a slave-trading station, and for a century its business was the purchase and shipment of people across the Atlantic.
Old Ningo lies on the coast east of Accra, beyond Tema and Prampram. It is close enough to the capital for a day trip and far enough off the main road that almost nobody makes it. What remains of the fort is a ruin in a fishing town.
Denmark is part of this story. Most visitors to Ghana think of the Portuguese, Dutch and British. Denmark held the coast east of Accra for nearly two centuries, and its transatlantic trade carried at least 100,000 captives. Fredensborg is one of the places where that trade happened.
From its castle at Osu, Denmark pushed east along the coast towards the Volta in the eighteenth century, building a chain of posts to buy captives brought down from the interior.
Christiansborg at Osu was the headquarters. Fredensborg at Ningo followed in 1734. Later came Augustaborg at Teshie and, at the far eastern end, Prinzenstein at Keta, now being taken by the sea.
The Danish posts were small, poorly supplied and constantly short of men, and they depended entirely on the Ga-Adangbe and Ewe rulers and traders around them. As on the rest of the coast, the fort existed by agreement with the people of the town — and survived only as long as the trade made it worth their while.
Abolition in name. Denmark decided in 1792 to end its slave trade, with the ban taking effect in 1803. The trade did not simply stop. At Osu, a Euro-African family built a fortified slave-trading compound years after the ban — see Richters Fort.
Without the slave trade, Fredensborg had no purpose. The Danes tried plantations instead of shipping people, and failed. The fort decayed.
By 1835 it was in such a state that only one person remained there, to keep the Danish flag flying. It was a fort in name only: a claim to the coast maintained by a single man and a pole.
On 8 March 1850 Denmark sold its Gold Coast possessions to Britain, and the British took formal possession of Fredensborg. It was already a ruin. They had no use for it, and it was left to fall apart.
Fort Fredensborg is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing of the Forts and Castles of Ghana, inscribed in 1979, "because of its testimony to the Atlantic slave trade". The listing has not brought it visitors, signs or protection.
The Danish spelling is Fredensborg; English sources sometimes write Fredensburg. Not to be confused with Frederiksborg — the Danish fort at Amanful, Cape Coast, later Fort Royal.
There is more than one Ningo on this coast. The fort is at Old Ningo, in the Ningo-Prampram district.
Ruined walls, unrestored and unexplained. It is protected on paper; on the ground, it is shrinking.
East past Tema towards Prampram, then on to Old Ningo. Roughly an hour from central Accra, much longer when the Tema traffic is bad.
Trotro from Accra or Tema towards Prampram and Ningo, then ask for the old fort. Local people know it, often simply as "the castle".
Fort Vernon at Prampram on the way, and Shai Hills inland for wildlife and the caves of the Shai people.
Beach resorts around Prampram and Ningo, or Accra. Options on ghanahotels.biz; flights into Accra International Airport on ghanaflights.info.
Expect a ruin: no staff, no fee, no signs. Ask before walking through compounds and do not climb on the walls. More on the capital: Accra; on the beaches of this coast: Greater Accra Beaches. Ghana Museums and Monuments Board: +233 302 221633 or +233 302 221635.
No tour we know of goes to Old Ningo. The tours below cover the big castles at Cape Coast and Elmina; the Danish forts east of Accra you do on your own.
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The British post at Prampram, a few kilometres west — now nearly invisible, used as a warehouse at the beach.
Denmark's headquarters on the Gold Coast, later the seat of Ghana's government.
A Danish plantation fort, part of Denmark's late attempt to grow crops rather than ship people.
The easternmost Danish fort, much of it already lost to coastal erosion at Keta.
A slave-trading compound built by a Euro-African family after Denmark's ban took effect.
The capital's forts in order, with honest warnings about what is open and what is locked.
All of them, in order: Forts and Castles of Ghana.
Fort Fredensborg is a ruin with a misleading name, an hour from Accra, and almost nobody goes. Go if you want to see the Danish slave trade without a museum between you and it: a fort of "peace" built for the trade in people, abandoned by its owners, sold as a ruin and left to the town around it.
Verified: 26 September 2026. Danish construction in 1734, the fort's role as a slave-trading station, the single remaining occupant in 1835, and British possession from 8 March 1850 follow standard reference accounts of Fort Fredensborg. The UNESCO inscription of 1979 is on record. The state of the ruins is described in general terms. Corrections welcome and will be published in full.