AT 350 years old, St Andrew Parish Church is one of the oldest churches in the country. Having been established in 1664, it has been an integral part of Jamaica’s history.

The St Andrew Parish Church was declared a national monument by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust in 2003, and this historic site has been the silent witness to many significant events which have taken place in Jamaica over the past three centuries

The story of St Andrew Parish Church begins when the British took Jamaica from Spain and divided the island into seven parishes. The Government established a church in each parish, following the pattern in England as the Church of England (Anglican church) was the state church. One of these was St Andrew Parish Church.

A six hundred-acre parcel of land for building a church and parsonage was granted by the Crown in 1667. The land extended from Half-Way-Tree north to Sandy Gully, east to the lands now occupied by King’s House, and to the south, the border of Trafalgar Park, then known as Trafalgar Pen.

The first church building, a simple wooden structure, was erected on church land near the corner of the present Waterloo and West King’s House roads. It is not known when it was built, but it was destroyed shortly after by a hurricane. By 1684 another building had been erected. This, too, was destroyed, this time by the 1692 earthquake. After this, it was decided to rebuild the church close to the small village of Half-Way-Tree. This building was finished in 1700 and was the site of the present church.

For almost 180 years this building remained virtually unaltered. However, by 1879 it had become too small for the growing congregation. Therefore, in 1879-80 the building was extensively renovated and, out of this exercise, the nucleus of the existing church building emerged. Five major extensions were carried out in the 20th century, as well as a major renovation occasioned by the damage caused by the 1907 earthquake.

The church has close links with both Devon House and King’s House, as at one time, the rectory was located at what is now Devon House, and the traditional home of the Anglican Lord Bishop of the Diocese of Jamaica was once located on lands where King’s House now sits. In fact, the bishop’s former residence was occupied by the governor while King’s House was under construction.

The cemetery

The St Andrew Parish Church Cemetery is the largest private cemetery in continuous use in the island.

Here you will find tombstones bearing the names of a wide range of people who have significant links with Jamaica’s history. So the cemetery could be described as a museum showcasing the who’s who of Jamaica in diverse eras.

The cemetery is the resting place for many bishops, including the first bishop of the Anglican Church in Jamaica, Enos Nuttall, the first Archbishop of the Province of the West Indies for whom Nuttall Hospital is named; and Percival Gibson, the first native bishop of Jamaica and founder of Kingston College.

Here also are buried the first Jamaican-born governor general of independent Jamaica, Sir Clifford Campbell; Amy Jacques Garvey, second wife of Jamaica’s first national hero; Jamaican-born actress Madge Sinclair; George Stiebel, Jamaica’s first black millionaire who built Devon House; and a host of well-known Jamaican entrepreneurs including Cecil B Facey, who started Facey Commodity Company and his son Maurice Facey, late chairman of Pan-Jamaican Investment Trust Limited.

“The celebration of our 350th anniversary is not only an opportunity to reflect on the past, but it is a reminder that our church has a calling towards community development, which we have taken most seriously since the earliest days of our existence as a parish church, and which is an ongoing commitment,” said rector of the church Rev Dr Sirrano Kitson.

“In full recognition of this responsibility, our church has several outreach projects in which it demonstrates, in a practical way, a strong pledge to the society and to the welfare of those persons in our community who are in greatest need of nurturing and assistance.”