La Guerite Reservoir serves the town of Basseterre and its environs. There is an interesting piece of architecture at its entrance, a retaining wall supporting the large undercover reservoir. It is believed to be a 19th century structure built around 1869 when the water supply to Basseterre was upgraded.

One of the remarkable features of an island tour of St. Kitts is the system of public cisterns found in each of the villages, beautifully constructed of cut stone, each having its own design, the size reflecting the community the cistern was expected to serve. The larger ones are buttressed for support, while the very small ones stand along. Each cistern has one or more pipes from which villagers might collect water from this public water supply for personal and other use. Another feature of these cisterns is that most of them have a postbox inserted in one of the walls, many of them still in use by the General Post Office.

This village water cistern on Half Way Tree has been chosen because of its structural beauty. It typifies the village cisterns found throughout the island.

When the English arrived in the 17th. Century and were allowed to settle between the two rivers (Wingfield and East Rivers) at Old Road, the Caribs were concentrated in the area around Wingfield River.

After the evictions of the Caribs in 1629, the English settled the lands in the area and cultivated tobacco, ginger, indigo and cotton. With the introduction of sugar in the 1640's, Wingfield developed into a major sugar plantation and one of the very few on the island to use water to power its factory works. The aqueduct is a unique architectural feature on the island and found only at Wingfield Estate Yard.

The nearby river and its forested watershed has always been a major resource for the area. Like all plantations on St. Kitts, Wingfield provided for its own fresh water needs. Since the 19th Century it has formed part of the public water supply system serving the population on the leeward side of the island.

There are four dams built across the Wingfield River: the first dam, the largest, collects the water at the highest point along the river course and is the main catchment from where water is piped for distribution to households. The three other dams are no longer used except to intercept the rush of water down the river. At one time they were part of the system that fed Wingfield estate.