Banjul trading post and base, constructing houses and barracks for controlling entrance to the Gambia estuary and suppressing the slave trade. The British renamed Banjul Island as St. Mary's Island and named the new town Bathurst, after the 3rd Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies at the time. Streets were laid out in a modified grid pattern, and named after Allied generals at the Battle of Waterloo. The town became the centre of British activity in the Gambia Colony and Protectorate. After independence, the town's name was changed to Banjul in 1973. On 22 July 1994, Banjul
Plymouth-Banjul Challenge into a Welsh Ambulance and two Canadians who bought a manual car in France and spent the next few weeks learning to drive it. Since 2007, the rally also has a group of cars continuing on to Bamako, Mali. The 2009/2010 Banjul Challenge was called off by its organiser Julian Nowill due to Mauritanian security concerns (French tourist murders and Spanish aid workers kidnappings), but two teams from group 1 and three teams from group 3 pushed on regardless. Team midlifecrises (Paul James Gadsdon and Steph Copson) and team homesick (Chris Freestone) from group 1 made it all the way