Sights in Port Royal
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St Peter's Church
Built in 1725 of red brick, this church is handsome within, despite its faux-brick facade of cement. Note the floor paved with original black-and-white tiles, and the beautifully decorated wooden organ loft built in 1743 and shipped to England in 1996 for restoration. The place is replete with memorial plaques. The communion plate kept in the vestry is said to have been donated by Henry Morgan, though experts date it to later times.
Most intriguing is a churchyard tomb of Lewis Galdye, a Frenchman who, according to his tombstone, '…was swallowed up in the Great Earth-quake in the Year 1692 & By the Providence of God was by another Shock thrown into the Sea & Miraculously …
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Maritime Museum
The marvelous Maritime Museum stands in the courtyard and contains a miscellany of things nautical from the heyday of the Royal Navy, plus a fabulous model of the Jamaica Producer cargo ship. Nelson lived in the small 'cockpit' while stationed here, and his quarters are replicated. Also of interest is a platform known as Nelson's Quarterdeck.
It was here that the young Horatio Nelson was said to keep watch for enemy ships, and once you climb to the top you'll agree that it does offer a splendid vantage point. A plaque on the wall of the King's Battery, to the right of the main entrance of the museum, commemorates his time here.
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Fort Charles
Jamaica’s latitude and longitude are measured from the flagstaff of Fort Charles, a weathered redoubt originally laid in 1655. Among Port Royal’s six original forts, only Fort Charles withstood the 1692 earthquake. It was rebuilt in red brick in 1699 and added to several times over the years. It was originally washed by the sea on three sides, but silt gradually built up and it is now firmly landlocked.
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Giddy House
A small brick hut, the Giddy House (so known because it produces a sense of disorientation to people who enter), sits alone amid scrub-covered, wind-blown sand 100m to the southwest of Fort Charles. The redbrick structure was built in 1888 to house the artillery store. The 1907 earthquake, however, briefly turned the spit to quicksand and one end of the building sank, leaving the store at a lopsided angle.
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Naval Dockyard
The old Naval Dockyard lies to the east of Morgan's Harbour Hotel. Its perimeter walls still stand, as does the Polygon Battery and torpedo slipways, though most of the buildings within are gone. The old coaling station lies immediately to the east. Most of the famous ships of the Royal Navy - from the 18th century to the age of steam - berthed here.
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Naval Cemetery
Less than 1km east of the dockyard, also enclosed by a brick wall, is the intriguing Naval Cemetery, where sailors lie buried beneath shady palms. Alas, the cemetery's most ancient quarter, which contained the grave of the famous buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan, sank beneath the sea in 1692.
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Victoria & Albert Battery
Next to the Giddy House is a massive gun emplacement and equally mammoth cannon - part of the easternmost casement of the Victoria & Albert Battery that lined the shore, linked by tunnels. The cannon keeled over in the 1907 earthquake.
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Old Gaol House
The only fully restored historical structure in town is the sturdy Old Gaol House, made of cut stone on Gaol Alley. It predates the 1692 earthquake, when it served as a women's jail. Today it houses a pharmacy.
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