The island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, since September 1978. Most of the main buildings in Gorée were constructed during the second half of the eighteenth century. The main buildings are the Slave house, 1786; William Ponty School, 1770; (Maritime museum), 1835; , originally called the northern battery, which now contains the Historical Museum of Senegal, built between 1852–65; (Government Palace), 1864, occupied by the first governor-general of Senegal from 1902–07. The Gorée Castle and the seventeenth-century Gorée Police Station, formerly a dispensary, believed to be the site of the first chapel built by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century, and the beach are also of interest to tourists.