North of Spanish Town

The first free village for ex-slaves was established at Sligoville, just north of Spanish Town, when Jamaica’s pro-abolition transition period governor Howe Peter Browne, known as the Marquis of Sligo, granted land to Baptist missionary James Phillippo. Browne’s former summer residence, Highgate House, now a JNHT site, can be reached by taking a left heading east off the main road to the north coast from Spanish Town (A1).

Nearby, the father of the Rastafarian movement, Leonard Howell, fled persecution on the North Coast to establish the Rasta commune of Pinnacle. Eventually, Pinnacle was smothered and Howell committed to a mental institution by the authorities, who would have none of his reverence for Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I.

Bog Walk, derived from Boca de Agua in Spanish, is a gorge prone to flooding, entered by traversing Flat Bridge. Horrendous traffic tends to accumulate on either side of the old stone single-lane bridge, especially as the weekend begins and comes to a close. Midway through the gorge on the west flank you can see the Pum Pum Rock, named as such because it bears a remarkable resemblance to part of a woman’s anatomy.

Linstead, celebrated in the folk song Linstead Market, still has a busy market on Saturday. The island’s public records were kept under guard at the Anglican Church in this small inland town when the French threatened invasion in 1805. The church has been destroyed and rebuilt several times.

On the border with St. Ann, Ewarton is noticeable from kilometers away by the stench created by aluminum processing if the bauxite plant is in operation. There’s little to see in Ewarton, and it’s not likely to be a place you’ll want to spend too much time.