Architectural, Cultural sights in Jamaica
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Devon House
This restored home nestles in landscaped grounds on the northwest side of Hope Rd at its junction with Waterloo Rd. A beautiful ochre-and-white house, it was built in 1881 by George Stiebel, a Jamaican wheelwright who hit paydirt in the gold mines of Venezuela. The millionaire rose to become the first black custos of St Andrew. The government bought and restored the building in 1967 to house the National Gallery of Jamaica, which has since moved to its present location downtown. Antique lovers will enjoy the visit, whose highlights include some very ornate porcelain chandeliers. Note the trompe l’oeil of palms in the entrance foyer. Stiebel even incorporated a game room w…
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Halse Hall
This is a handsome great house, on the B12, 5km south of May Pen, situated up on a hillock with commanding views. After the English invasion in 1655, the land was granted to Major Thomas Halse, who built the house on an old Spanish foundation and whose grave is behind the house in a small cemetery. For a time the house was occupied by Sir Hans Sloane, the famous doctor and botanist, whose collection of Jamaican flora and fauna formed the nucleus of what later became the Natural History Museum in London. Today, it is owned by the bauxite concern, Alcoa Minerals, which uses it for conferences and social functions. To take a tour call and ask for Mrs Chambers.
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Folly
Thes two-story, 60-room mansion known as the Folly on the peninsula east of East Harbour was built entirely of concrete in pseudo-Grecian style by a North American millionaire. It was in private use until 1936, when the roof collapsed. Sea water had been used in the construction, causing the iron reinforcing rods to rust. Today the shell of the structure remains, held aloft by limestone columns.
It makes a perfectly peculiar locale for a picnic. Nearby stands the bright-orange Folly Point Lighthouse, built in 1888.
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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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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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Rose Hall Great House
The infamy of multiple-murderer Annie Palmer, AKA 'White Witch of Rose Hall' surrounds this imposing 18th-century house and its inhabitants. Though destroyed by slaves in 1831, it was restored to its haughty three-storey grandeur in 1966. Besides discovering the thrilling legend, an abode full of antiques, mahogany and silk awaits you - as do an old English-style pub, snack bar and gift shop.
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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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King’s House
King’s House was initially the home of the Lord Bishop of Jamaica. The original house was badly damaged in the 1907 earthquake. Today’s visitors explore the remake, built in 1909 to a new design in reinforced concrete. The dining room contains two particularly impressive full-length portraits of King George III and Queen Charlotte by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
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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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Jamaica House
About half a kilometer further up Hope Rd from Devon House on the left, Jamaica House is faced by a columned portico and fronted by expansive lawns. Initially built in 1960 as the residence of the prime minister, the building today houses the prime minister's office. Visitors are restricted to peering through the fence.
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Whitehall Great House
The only other site of note in the hills is Whitehall Great House, in ruins following a fire in 1985. The surrounding plantation grounds provide a stage for horseback rides. Don't be fooled into paying around US$5 for a tour by the locals who hang out and attempt to attach themselves as self-ascribed 'guides.'
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Alexander Bustamante’s House
Although you can’t go inside andt here’s no plaque to mark it, hardcore fans of Jamaica’s first president can pay tribute to Alexander Bustamante’s House, at the southern end of Duke St near the corner of Water Lane. This is the site of the national hero’s former office.
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Old King's House
On the west side of Parade Square is the porticoed Georgian redbrick facade of the ruins of the Old King's House, a once-grandiose building erected in 1762 as the official residence of Jamaica's governors. The building was destroyed by fire in 1925, leaving only the restored facade.
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Coke Memorial Hall
Coke Memorial Hall faces the eastern side of William Grant Park. This crenellated building has an austere redbrick facade in the dour Methodist tradition. The structure dates from 1840, but was remodeled in 1907 after sustaining severe damage in the earthquake.
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Bramwell Booth Memorial Hall
At the northwest corner of William Grant Park – where public hangings took place in colonial days – the structure with a pink, turreted facade is Bramwell Booth Memorial Hall, the headquarters of the Salvation Army, built in 1933.
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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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Hendricks Building
High St is lined with colonnaded, Georgian timber houses with gingerbread trim. At the east end is the Hendricks Building, dating from 1813.
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Bob Marley's Former Home
Bob Marley's Former Home is in a depressing slum 'yard' near the Trench Town museum, but only visit with a guide from the TTDA.
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