Sights in Montego Bay
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Rose Hall Great House
This mansion, with its commanding hilltop position 3km east of Ironshore, is the most famous great house in Jamaica. Construction of the imposing house was begun by George Ashe in the 1750s and was completed in the 1770s by John Palmer, a wealthy plantation owner. Palmer and his wife Rose (after whom the house was named) hosted some of the most elaborate social gatherings on the island. Slaves destroyed the house in the Christmas Rebellion of 1831 and it was left in ruins for over a century. In 1966 the three-story building was restored to haughty grandeur. Beyond the Palladian portico the house is a bastion of 18th-century style, with a magnificent mahogany stairca…
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Greenwood Great House
This marvelous estate sits high on a hill 11km east of Ironhshore. Construction began on the two-story, stone-and-timber structure in 1780 by the Honorable Richard Barrett, whose family arrived in Jamaica in the 1660s and amassed a fortune from its sugar plantations. (Barrett was a cousin of the famous English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.) In an unusual move for his times, Barrett educated his slaves. Unique among local plantation houses, Greenwood survived unscathed during the slave rebellion of Christmas 1831. The original library is still intact, as are oil paintings, Dresden china, a court jester’s chair and plentiful antiques, including a mantrap used for catc…
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Sam Sharpe Square
The bustling cobbled Sam Sharpe Square, formerly called the Parade, is named for national hero the Right Excellent Samuel Sharpe (1801-32), the leader of the 1831 Christmas Rebellion. At the square's northwest corner is the National Heroes Monument, an impressive bronze statue of Paul Bogle and Sam Sharpe - bible in hand, speaking to three admirers.
Also on the northwest corner is the Cage, a tiny cut-stone and brick building built in 1806 as a lockup, now a small souvenir shop. At the southwest corner is the copper-domed Civic Centre, a handsome colonial-style cut-stone building on the site of the ruined colonial courthouse.
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Town House
The Town House, with a handsome redbrick frontage buried under a cascade of bougainvillea and laburnum, dates from 1765, when it was the home of a wealthy merchant. It has since served as a church manse and later as a townhouse for the mistress of the Earl of Hereford, Governor of Jamaica. In the years that followed it was used as a hotel, warehouse, Masonic lodge, lawyer’s office and synagogue. Its current incarnation is a clothes store.
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Burchell Memorial Baptist Church
Two blocks east of Sam Sharpe Sq, Burchell Memorial Baptist Church is a brick structure dating to 1835. Sam Sharpe was a deacon here. The original church was founded in 1824 by Rev Thomas Burchell. An angry mob destroyed the church in reprisal for Burchell’s support of the emancipation cause, but the missionary escaped to sea. Sam Sharpe’s remains are buried in the vault.
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Barnett Estate
The sea of sugarcane south of Montego Bay is part of the Barnett Estate, a plantation owned and operated since 1755 by the Kerr-Jarretts, one of Jamaica’s preeminent families; their holdings once included most of the Montego Bay area. Today the family (now in its 11th generation) holds the land in trust for the government and manages it accordingly.
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Bellfield Great House
The Bellfield Great House, built in 1735, has been restored and is now a showcase of 18th-century colonial living. The former plantation manager’s house doubles as a museum charting the development of the area since the day that Colonel Nicholas Jarrett arrived with Cromwell’s invasion army in 1655.
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Creek Dome
Lurking at the end of Creek St is the bizarre-looking Creek Dome, built in 1837 above the underground spring that supplied drinking water for Montego Bay. The structure is actually a hexagon with a crenellated castle turret in which the ‘Keeper of the Creek’ lived and collected a toll.
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Dead End Beach
Aligning Kent Rd just north of Gloucester Rd, Dead End Beach, also known as Buccaneer Beach, is a narrow strip popular with locals. There are no facilities here (beyond those at a few hotels over the road), but the lack of crowds seems to make the sunsets over the bay all the more gorgeous.
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Fort Montego
At the southern end of Gloucester Ave is this inauspicious fort, of which virtually nothing remains. Built in the late 18th century by the British, its cannons were fired only twice. The sole remnant is a small battery with three brass cannons on rails.
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Museum of St James
In the Civic Centre is the small yet highly informative Museum of St James with relics and other exhibits tracing the history of St James parish from Arawak days through the slave rebellions to the more recent past. An art gallery and 200-seat theater are also here.
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St James Parish Church
St James Parish Church is regarded as the finest church on the island. The current church was built between 1775 and 1782 in the shape of a Greek cross, but was so damaged by the earthquake of March 1, 1957, that it had to be rebuilt.
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National Housing Trust
At the corner of King St and Church St is a redbrick Georgian building harboring the National Housing Trust. Equally impressive is the three-story Georgian building at 25 Church St - headquarters of Cable & Wireless Jamaica.
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Walter Fletcher Beach
Visited by locals and tourists alike, Walter Fletcher Beach is a long sliver of white sand at the south end of Gloucester Ave, boasting the Aquasol Theme Park.
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