When it was founded
The early dates belong to the first Portuguese post near the Ankobra mouth; 1515 is the usual date for the fort on the rock at Axim. Pages that give "1502" for the present building have merged the two.
Header Photo - at Richter Fort Osu,Accra
Ghana-Net.com · Western Region · Nzema East · Axim
Portugal's second fort on the Gold Coast, wedged onto a rock at the edge of Axim, with the Atlantic breaking on three sides. Built for the gold of the Ankobra. Taken by the Dutch in 1642. Still standing — which is more than can be said for the river that made it rich.
Axim is a busy fishing town on the Nzema coast, and most of it faces the sea. At its western end a rocky promontory pushes into the surf, and on that rock sits Fort St Anthony — Forte de Santo António to the Portuguese who built it, Fort Sint Anthonie to the Dutch who took it from them.
It is small, compact and oddly shaped, because the builders had to fit it to the rock rather than the rock to the fort. From the landward side it looks modest. From the beach, with the waves hitting the base, you understand why it survived: nobody was going to take this from the sea.
Why it matters. After Elmina in 1482, this was the Portuguese Crown's second permanent fort on the Gold Coast. Together with San Sebastian at Shama, it is one of the three oldest European buildings still standing in Ghana.
Portugal did not come to Axim for people. It came for gold, and the gold came down the Ankobra.
The Ankobra River reaches the sea just east of Axim, and the country behind it was one of the richest gold areas of the whole coast. The Portuguese first set up a trading post near the river mouth in the early 1500s. It did not last — relations with the people there broke down — and they moved to the rock at Axim, where a fort could actually be held.
The fort on the present site is usually dated to 1515. For more than a century it traded gold for cloth, metalware and other European goods, and it anchored Portugal's presence on the western coast while Elmina ran the centre.
The Dutch took Elmina in 1637. Axim held out for five more years.
In 1642 the Dutch West India Company captured Fort St Anthony, and with it Portugal's last foothold on the Gold Coast. From then on, the Portuguese were gone from this coast for good.
The Dutch rebuilt and enlarged the fort and held it for the next two hundred and thirty years. Over that time Axim traded in people as well as gold — like every other fort on this shore, it became part of the Atlantic slave trade as that trade overtook everything else.
In 1872 the Netherlands sold all its remaining Gold Coast possessions to Britain, and Fort St Anthony passed to the British with the rest.
For the wider picture of who traded whom on this coast, and who profited, see Who Sold Whom and The Forgotten Giants of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
This fort exists because of a river full of gold. Five hundred years later the gold is still the problem.
Today the Ankobra is one of the rivers worst hit by galamsey — illegal gold mining with excavators and mercury upstream. The water that reaches the sea near Axim is often brown with mud, and the damage runs along the whole western coast.
That is worth knowing before you plan a beach day here. Stretches of the Western Region coast near the mouths of the Ankobra and the Pra are not places to swim, whatever the photographs suggest.
The same story, further east: at Fort San Sebastian, Shama, galamsey on the Pra has turned the sea brown below the fort. For where it is still safe to swim on this coast, see Western Region Beaches.
Three points recur in accounts of this fort, and they do not always agree.
The early dates belong to the first Portuguese post near the Ankobra mouth; 1515 is the usual date for the fort on the rock at Axim. Pages that give "1502" for the present building have merged the two.
It is often called Ghana's second-oldest fort, and Shama's San Sebastian the third. Dating both precisely is hard, and some accounts reverse them. What is certain is that both are Portuguese and both are older than anything except Elmina.
Reports on whether the fort is currently open to visitors differ, and several are out of date. This page does not repeat any of them as fact. Telephone the Museums and Monuments Board before you travel.
West through Agona Nkwanta and on towards Axim — roughly 65 to 70 kilometres. Allow an hour and a half, longer when the road is being worked on or the rains are heavy.
Trotros run from Takoradi to Axim throughout the day. The fort is at the western end of town; any taxi driver knows it, and you can walk from the centre.
Fort Apollonia at Beyin and Nzulezo further west, the Nkrumah mausoleum at Nkroful on the way, and Dixcove back east.
Axim has beach lodges on both sides of town, and it makes a better base for the far west than Takoradi. Options on ghanahotels.biz; flights into the country on ghanaflights.info.
The regional capital is Sekondi-Takoradi. Axim is a comfortable day from there, and the natural overnight stop if you are going on to Nkroful, Beyin and Nzulezo.
Check before travelling. Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, 2 Barnes Road, Adabraka, Accra: +233 302 221633 or +233 302 221635.
No tour we know of goes to Axim — for this fort you arrange your own transport. The castle tours below cover Cape Coast and Elmina, and work well as the first leg of a trip that carries on west.
Bookings through this widget earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. No operator has paid to appear on this page.
Axim sits in the middle of the western forts — within a day of all of them.
The westernmost fort in Ghana, handed to the Dutch in 1868 and back to Britain in 1872 — now a museum of Nzema history.
A village built on stilts over the water, reached by canoe from Beyin. The best reason to carry on west from Axim.
Nkrumah's birthplace and first burial place, between Axim and Beyin. See also Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
The only German fort in Ghana, still standing — and the one an Ahanta ruler, John Conny, held against the Dutch for seven years after Prussia sold it.
Above the fishing harbour at Dixcove, and one of the strangest stories on this coast — leased to a British private individual in the 2000s, prompting a dispute about who can hold a World Heritage site.
The other early Portuguese fort still standing, above the mouth of the Pra. Almost nobody visits, and the view from the top is one of the best on the western coast.
All of them, in order: Forts and Castles of Ghana — the complete directory. The lighthouses of this coast: Western Region Lighthouses. The Nzema and Ahanta harvest festival: Kundum.
Fort St Anthony is not Elmina, and it does not pretend to be. It is a small, old, well-placed fort in a working town, with a better story than its size suggests: Portugal's last stand on the Gold Coast, two centuries of Dutch rule, and a river whose gold made the place and whose gold is now wrecking it.
Make Axim your base for the far west. See the fort in the morning, look at it again from the beach, and go on to Nkroful, Beyin and Nzulezo from here.
Verified: 26 September 2026. The founding date of 1515, the Dutch capture of 1642 and the transfer to Britain in 1872 follow standard reference accounts of the Gold Coast forts; earlier dates for a Portuguese post near the Ankobra are noted separately. Current opening arrangements are not stated because published reports conflict; check before you travel. Corrections welcome and will be published in full.