St Ann, near St Ann's Bay
Seville
Great House
Taino village, Spain's first Jamaican capital and a British sugar estate on one hill.
- Built
- 1745
- Economy
- Sugar
- Style
- Jamaican Georgian plantation house (now single storey)
- Today
- Museum / heritage park
Overview
Seville Heritage Park, just west of St Ann's Bay, holds layers of almost every period of Jamaica's human story. A Taino village known as Maima stood here, and in 1509 the Spanish founded Sevilla la Nueva, their first capital on the island, before moving the capital to Spanish Town in 1534. After England conquered Jamaica in 1655, the land became the Seville sugar estate of the Heming (often spelled Hemming or Hemmings) family.
In 1745 a grandson of the first English owner built the Great House that survives today, which lost its upper storey to a hurricane. Hundreds of enslaved Africans lived and worked here; the 1817 register lists more than 200 people, and archaeologists have excavated their village. The Government of Jamaica acquired the property in 1971, it opened to visitors in 1994, and the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT) declared it a national monument in 1999. It is on UNESCO's Tentative List for World Heritage.
Timeline
16 dated moments in the life of Seville. Select a marker, or use the arrow keys, to read each one. Shaded bands show the wider eras of Jamaican history; dotted lines mark island-wide uprisings.
Swipe sideways to see the whole timeline, or read the full list below.
- 1494
Columbus arrives
Columbus lands at Santa Gloria (St Ann's Bay), near the Taino village of Maima.
- 1509
Sevilla la Nueva founded
Juan de Esquivel and about 80 settlers found Jamaica's first Spanish capital.
- 1513
First enslaved Africans
According to the UNESCO submission, the first enslaved Africans are brought to Sevilla la Nueva.
- 1534
Capital moves
The Spanish move their capital to Villa de la Vega (Spanish Town) and Sevilla declines.
- 1655
English conquest
England takes Jamaica; an officer named Hemmings is later granted the Seville lands.
- 1670
Sugar estate begins
A 2,500-acre grant is made and the Heming family starts a sugar plantation and first great house.
- 1745
Great House built
The founder's grandson builds the present two-storey Great House on the earlier house site.
- 1817
Slave register
The register records 204 enslaved people at Seville (111 female, 93 male).
- 1834
Emancipation
Slavery is abolished; apprenticeship lasts until 1838, after which many people move to The Priory.
- 1838
Compensation paid
Richard Heming, as receiver, is awarded £3,381 13s 4d for 168 people in a contested claim.
- 1898
Hurricane damage
The JNHT says a hurricane around 1898 removed the upper storey, which was never rebuilt.
- 1971
Government acquires site
The Government of Jamaica acquires the property.
- 1987
Village excavations
Douglas Armstrong's team begins excavating the African-Jamaican villages (to 1993).
- 1994
Park opens
Seville opens to the public as a heritage attraction.
- 1999
National monument
The JNHT declares Seville a national monument on 13 May 1999.
- 2009
UNESCO Tentative List
Seville Heritage Park is added to UNESCO's World Heritage Tentative List on 2 March 2009.
The story of Seville
Origins, owners and the working estate.
Long before Europeans arrived, the area was home to Taino people; Archaeology magazine notes evidence of human presence from about AD 650, and the village of Maima lay nearby. Christopher Columbus reached this coast, which he called Santa Gloria, in 1494, and was stranded here with his crews in 1503–04. In 1509 Juan de Esquivel arrived with about 80 settlers and founded Sevilla la Nueva, Jamaica's first European town and capital, according to the JNHT's UNESCO submission. The Spanish built a governor's residence, a sugar mill and a stone church, and enslaved Africans were brought here as early as 1513. The settlement was abandoned in 1534 when the capital moved to Villa de la Vega (Spanish Town).
After the English conquest of 1655, officers were rewarded with land. A Captain Hemmings received a grant of about 2,500 acres covering the old Spanish town; sources name him as Samuel or Richard, and date the grant or the start of the plantation to 1670. The family set up a sugar works and the first great house, and an early village for enslaved workers is shown on a 1721 estate plan. In 1745 the founder's grandson replaced the older house with the present Great House.
Seville stayed a sugar and rum estate, with pimento, cattle, mahogany and logwood also recorded. Robertson's 1804 map shows it as a sugar estate with a watermill. Later Heming heirs lived in England and the estate was run by attorneys and overseers. In the 1830s the family was in a legal dispute with the creditors Rutherford and Jegon, which is reflected in the contested compensation claim of 1838.
Architecture
How the house was built, and what survives.
The JNHT describes the Great House of 1745 as built on the site of an earlier late-17th-century house. It was originally two storeys tall; the top storey was lost to a hurricane and never replaced, so today it is a single-storey house. The JNHT says the walls are of wattle-and-daub construction, with timber floors and English tiling. Doors are solid raised-panel mahogany, and mahogany arches divide the living and dining rooms. Most windows are sash windows, some later altered with jalousies. A veranda runs the full length of the northern side, framed by square timber columns, to give shade, light and air. A projecting portico at the entrance forms a landing for a pair of divided cut-stone staircases. The roof was covered in cedar shingles with a cap-and-comb ridge and has finials on the east and west gable ends.
Around the house the park preserves the ruins of the Spanish governor's residence (often called the Governor's Castle), a Spanish sugar mill and artisan workshop, the remains of the Peter Martyr church, the estate's sugar works and waterwheel remains, and reconstructions of Taino and African-Jamaican houses. The Great House now serves as a museum of archaeological finds.
The people of Seville
Owners, enslaved Africans and their descendants, workers and keepers.
Seville's wealth came from enslaved Africans and their children born in Jamaica. Archaeologists with the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery estimate an average of about 275 enslaved people a year on the estate between the 1670s and emancipation. The official registers in the UCL Legacies of British Slavery (LBS) database show a decline over time: 237 in 1809, 204 in 1817 (111 female, 93 male), 189 in 1823 and 177 in 1832 (95 female, 82 male). No individual enslaved people were named in the sources consulted.
From 1987 to 1993 the Seville African Jamaican Archaeological Project, led by Douglas Armstrong of Syracuse University, excavated two village areas: an early village of about 20 houses behind the Great House, in use from about the 1670s to the 1780s, and a later village to the west. House 16 had wattle-and-daub walls and a swept yard. A burial from about the 1750s found in a house yard is thought to be the first African burial excavated from a house compound in the Americas; some remains were returned to Ghana in 1998.
The Heming family owned the estate across several generations, from the first grantee to Samuel Scudamore Heming and Richard Heming in the 1830s. At emancipation, Richard Heming received £3,381 13s 4d as receiver for 168 people. After 1838 many freed people moved to The Priory, a free village just west of the estate, while others stayed. East Indian indentured labourers also lived here in the mid-19th century.
Juan de Esquivelarrived 1509
Spanish founder of Sevilla la Nueva
Led about 80 settlers to found Jamaica's first Spanish capital.
Captain Hemmings (Samuel or Richard Heming)grant c. 1670
First English owner
Sources disagree on his first name; received about 2,500 acres including the Spanish town site.
Samuel Heming of St Annd. c. 1720
Owner
LBS records his will leaving Jamaican estates in trust to his son Richard.
Richard Hemingowner 1829–32, receiver from 1834
Owner, then receiver
Awarded the 1838 compensation as receiver.
Enslaved community of Seville1670s–1838
Estate workers and villagers
About 175–240 people in the 1809–1832 registers; their village has been excavated.
Douglas V. Armstrongfieldwork 1987–1993
Archaeologist, Syracuse University
Led excavations of the African-Jamaican villages.
What the records count
Every mark below is one person listed as enslaved on the estate in the official returns. Choose a year to see how the number changed.
177
Between 1817 and 1832 the recorded number fell by 27, from 204 to 177. On most Jamaican sugar estates, deaths outnumbered births under slavery; the population was kept up by purchase.
Myth and fact
Stories told about the house, checked against the documents.
The story
The Great House was built by the soldier who conquered Jamaica in 1655.
The record
The first English owner built an earlier house; the present Great House was built in 1745 by his grandson.
Seville today
The last residents of the old estate village had died by the end of the 19th century. The Hoskins family held the estate in the early 20th century, and in 1925 a Hoskins gave land around the Peter Martyr church ruins to the Catholic Church. Archaeology began with digs at the Governor's Castle in 1937 and continued at the Spanish sugar mill in the 1960s. The Government of Jamaica bought the property in 1971, and when farmers began expanding banana fields into the early village area in the 1980s the JNHT secured the land for a heritage park.
The park opened to the public in 1994, and the JNHT declared it a national monument on 13 May 1999. In 2009 the JNHT submitted Seville Heritage Park to UNESCO's World Heritage Tentative List. The park is a site of remembrance for the African diaspora: in August 2026 Ghana's President John Mahama laid a wreath there for victims of the transatlantic slave trade.
Seville Heritage Park is run by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust and offers guided tours; some areas, such as the Spanish ruins, may need arranging in advance. Check with the JNHT before visiting.
Learn
For students, teachers and the curious.
Did you know?
- Seville was the site of the first Spanish capital of Jamaica, founded in 1509.
- Columbus and his crew were stranded nearby for about a year in 1503–04.
- The Great House was once two storeys tall, but a hurricane blew the top floor away.
- Archaeologists found the remains of about 20 houses where enslaved Africans once lived behind the Great House.
- Seville is on UNESCO's Tentative List, a step towards possible World Heritage status.
Test yourself
Sources
Where this account comes from. The web addresses are listed so you can check the evidence yourself.
- Jamaica National Heritage Trust – Seville Great Househttp://www.jnht.com/site_seville_great_house.php
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre – Seville Heritage Park (Tentative List)https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5431/
- UCL Legacies of British Slavery – Seville estatehttps://wwwdepts-live.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/estate/view/2564
- UCL LBS – Claim St Ann 752 (Seville)https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/19927
- UCL LBS – Samuel Heming of St Annhttps://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146648855
- DAACS – Seville Plantationhttps://www.daacs.org/plantations/seville-plantation/
- DAACS – Seville House 16https://www.daacs.org/sites/seville-house-16/
- Archaeology Magazine – Seville Heritage Parkhttps://archaeology.org/issues/january-february-2018/off-the-grid/trenches-jamaica-seville-heritage-park/
- MyJoyOnline – President Mahama concludes Jamaica visit with Seville Heritage Park tourhttps://www.myjoyonline.com/president-mahama-concludes-jamaica-visit-with-seville-heritage-park-tour/
- Jamaica Great Houses – Seville timelinehttps://jamaicagreathouses.com/seville/seville-timeline.html
Historian's notes: what is uncertain
Name and first name of the first English owner vary: Samuel Hemmings (JNHT-based timeline, UNESCO), Richard Heming (Archaeology magazine, DAACS, MyJoyOnline); LBS uses the spelling Heming. The 1670 date is given both for the land grant and for the start of the plantation. The hurricane that removed the upper storey is dated c.1898 by the JNHT but the UNESCO text implies damage between 1745 and the early 1780s; DAACS notes 1780s hurricane damage to the village.
Estimated average of 275 enslaved per year (DAACS/Archaeology) is higher than LBS register figures (175–237 in 1809–1832). Hoskins family ownership and the 1925 church land gift come from a secondary timeline site and are unconfirmed by an official source. The date of the Mahama visit (about 4 August 2026) is inferred from an article published 6 August 2026. Coordinates are approximate (about 2 km west of St Ann's Bay).
Nearby great houses
This profile was compiled by Jamaica Homes News from the sources listed above and checked against archival records where they were available. Legends are labelled as legends. Inclusion here does not confirm public access or opening hours. Spotted an error, or hold records about this house? Return to the Great Houses archive to explore the other houses.