Spanish Town

Spanish Town, some 10 miles (16km) west of Kingston, was the capital of Jamaica from 1662 to 1872 and was founded by the Spanish.

The English cathedral, surprisingly retaining its Spanish name, San Jago de la Vega, was built in 1666 and rebuilt in 1712. Because the cathedral was built on the foundation and remains of the old Spanish church, it is half English, half Spanish, and shows two definite styles - one Romanesque, the other Gothic. It's one of the most interesting historical buildings in Jamaica. The black-and-white marble stones of the aisles are interspersed with ancient tombstones, and the walls are heavy with marble memorials that almost form a chronicle of Jamaica's history, dating back as far as 1662.

After visiting the cathedral, walk 3 blocks north along White Church Street to Constitution Street and the Town Square. Graceful royal palms surround this little square. On the west side is Old King's House, residence of Jamaica's British governors until 1872, when the capital was transferred to Kingston. It hosted many celebrated guests - among them Lord Nelson, Admiral Rodney, Captain Bligh of HMS Bounty fame, and King William IV. Gutted by fire in 1925, its facade has been restored.

Jamaica People's Museum of Craft & Technology, Old King's House, Constitution Square, is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 4pm. Admission is J$100 (US$2.30) for adults, J$40 (US90$) for children. The garden contains examples of old farm machinery, an old water-mill wheel, a hand-turned sugar mill, a fire engine, and more. An outbuilding houses a museum of crafts and technology, together with a number of smaller agricultural implements. In the small archaeological museum are old prints, models, and maps of the town's grid layout from the 1700s.

The streets around the old Town Square contain many fine Georgian town houses intermixed with tin-roofed shacks. Nearby is the market, so busy in the morning that you'll find it difficult, almost dangerous, to drive through. It provides, however, a bustling scene of Jamaican life.

On the north side of the square is the Rodney Memorial, the most dramatic building on the square, commissioned by a grateful assembly to commemorate the 1782 victory of British admiral Baron George Rodney over a French fleet, saving the island from invasion.

The remaining side of the square, the east, contains the most attractive building, the House of Assembly, with a shady brick colonnade running the length of the ground floor, above which is a wooden-pillared balcony. This was the stormy center of the bitter debates of Jamaica's governing body. Now the ground floor is the parish library.

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