Architecture sights in Kingston

1. St Peter's Church

   • Port Royal, Jamaica
   • Sights › Architecture

   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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2. St Jago de la Vega Cathedral

   • Spanish Town, Jamaica
   • Sights › Architecture

   From the town square, take White Church St south for three blocks to St Jago de la Vega Cathedral, the oldest Anglican cathedral in the former British colonies. It's also one of the prettiest churches in Jamaica, boasting wooden fluted pillars, an impressive beamed ceiling, a magnificent stained-glass window behind the altar, and a large organ dating to 1849.

   The church stands on the site of one of the first Spanish cathedrals in the New World: the Franciscan Chapel of the Red Cross, built in 1525. English soldiers destroyed the Catholic church and used the original materials to build their cathedral. The current structure dates from 1714. Note the handsome octagonal…

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