Seville Great House and Heritage Site

Seville Great House

Located on the north coast of the island, around 2 km west of the town center of St Ann’s Bay, the Seville Heritage Site consists of relics from the Taino, Spanish, British, and African communities in Jamaica, including the archaeological remains of the Taino village of Maima, the 16th century Spanish settlement of Sevilla la Nueva, and the post-1655 British sugar plantation known as New Seville. The latter was one of the first sites in the region to have received enslaved Africans working on the sugar plantations. After being abandoned by the Spaniards, New Seville became the property of the British Captain Hemmings. In 1745, Hemmings’ grandson built the great house on the site of the original house built in the 1670s. The Seville Great House originally had two storeys but the top one was blown off by a hurricane in 1898 and was never replaced.

For more information, see: Seville Heritage Park - UNESCO World Heritage Centre

Greenwood House

The Greenwood House of St. James Parish was completed as a venue for entertaining guests in 1790. It joined the Barrett family's sprawling collection of properties that spanned several estates, hundreds of slaves, and thousands of acres in Jamaica. The home is a rare surviving example of how the wealthiest slave owners of the eighteenth-century lived. The impressive structure, its breathtaking views, and its lavish furnishings inevitably juxtaposed harshly with the lives of violent deprivation facing those whose labors undergirded the Barrett’s opulence.