Fort Purcell Fort Purcell ( more often known by the moniker The Dungeon ) is a ruined fort near Pockwood Pond on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands . History . The Fort was originally built by the Dutch at an unascertained date in either the late 16th or very early 17th century , and was known by the Spanish authorities in Puerto Rico as the " dojon " ( from which the English name , " the Dungeon " comes – the fort has never actually been used as a dungeon ) . The fort was originally only earthen , and was occupied intermittently , but it was restored by the Dutch privateer Joost van Dyk in 1625 or 1626 . Documents from archives in Seville , Spain , report about two attacks that the Spanish made on Tortola in 1646 and 1647 . The reports indicate that the Spanish anchored a warship in Soper ' s Hole at West End and landed men ashore . They then sent another warship to blockade Road Harbour . After a team of scouts returned a safe report , the Spanish landed more men and attacked Fort Purcell by foot from the land . The Dutch were massacred and the Spanish soldiers then moved overland to Road Town . The Fort fell into disrepair , but was restored in the early 1650s during the First Anglo – Dutch War . Reports of the next vary according to historical sources . Dutch historians aver that at the outbreak of the Third Anglo - Dutch War , the then ( Dutch ) owner of Tortola , Willem Hunthum , put Tortola under the protection of Sir William Stapleton , the English Governor - General of the Leeward Islands . Colonel William Burt was dispatched to Tortola to oversee the annexation on the understanding that the island would be returned to the Dutch when peace was declared . However , the British decided that Tortola had strategic importance and reneged upon the bargain , retaining control of the island . But before leaving the island , Colonel Burt destroyed the Dutch forts and removed all their cannon to avoid any inclination of the Dutch settlers to rebel . The English version suggests that Colonel Burt was sent to attack Tortola with a meagre force of 100 men , but that the Dutch immediately surrendered . Recognising that he could not hold the island , Burt dismantled the forts and removed the weaponry before returning to Saint Kitts . After the end of the war , the Dutch asked for return of the island , but the British declined . Either way , Fort Purcell was not rebuilt . Accordingly , in 1686 , when pirates attacked a new British settlement , there was no fort and the island was taken easily . By 1715 , the fort had still not been rebuilt when Captain Chandler , on HMS " Winchelsey " , made a report on the islands . Subsequently the population and economic activity on Tortola expanded , and the question of fortification of the island became more pressing . In the early 1750s , Governor Purcell wrote to the Lords of Trade and Plantations that he had rebuilt a fort with four bastions on the site of the original Dutch fort which had been laid to ruin by the British in 1672 ( it is presumably at this point Fort Purcell was named or renamed after the Purcell brothers , James Purcell ( 1750 - 1751 ) and John Purcell ( 1751 - 1775 ) who served as Presidents of the British Virgin Islands Council consecutively from ; their plantations were in this area and the fort was rebuilt privately to protect their interests ; planters would also have had to erect batteries and forts at their own expense at the time , to protect the individual plantations in secluded bays not covered by the Government forts ) . With the subsequent severe economic decline of the islands which accompanied the abolition of slavery , the Purcell plantation was abandoned , and the fort fell into ruin . Structure . The use of different stone types in various parts of the building shows the evolution of the building ' s construction . Inside one of the rooms are a series of graffiti drawings carved into the wall by a bored member of the garrison . One drawing shows a dancing girl and another , an officer or gentleman in a three quarter length coat . By dating the clothing worn by the people in the drawings we able to see that the fort would have been garrisoned during the Seven Years ' War which took place between 1756 - 63 . A red brick staircase leads to the gun battery which would have mounted six guns allowing the fort to completely cover the surrounding area of the Sir Francis Drake Channel . There is also a water cistern and a number of masonry platforms that would once have had wooden buildings on them for the officers and garrison accommodation . Today . Not unusually for historical buildings in the British Virgin Islands , Fort Purcell is on private land ( the land is presently owned by the late Cyril Romney , a former chief minister of the Territory ) . However , it is freely accessible and often visited by tourists . Periodically suggestion is made that the government should acquire the site and clean it up , but to date this has not happened . The island does not treat the ruins especially well today . They are not protected or preserved by law , and the area surrounding the Fort is often used as a dumping ground for waste ( ironically enough , the incinerator for destroying rubbish , for which there is no charge in the Territory , lies less than half a mile away in Pockwood Pond ) . The ruins become heavily overgrown during the rainy season . There are also periodic reports of amateur archaeologists using metal detector s and removing historical artifacts from the unexcavated areas around the site .