Sleeping Beauty Awakes: Falmouth Set to Become Jamaica’s Fourth Cruise Destination

Falmouth, JAMAICA, October 29 —The coastal town of Falmouth lies just 22 miles east of Montego Bay, Jamaica’s most famous resort. Falmouth today is noted as someplace you pass on your way to somewhere else, but the town has a wonderfully storied past; one in which astonishing wealth, politics and even love came crashing together in a heady history. And it is that glorious history that is set to propel the town to become one of the Caribbean’s most culturally vibrant cruise destinations. By 2009, the Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ) expects to debut Falmouth as a major cruise port with facilities to host two Genesis-class ships. The destination will deeply reference the town’s history, offering visitors a unique sensory experience of the Colonial era.

“This is quite simply one of the most outstanding things we’ve done, but is also one of the most natural things for us to do in order to amplify Jamaica’s position in the market,” explains William Tatham, Vice President of Cruise and Marina Operations at the Port Authority of Jamaica. “Cruise visitors are looking for more memorable experiences, and this is certainly what Falmouth will be able to deliver.”

Falmouth was founded in 1790 from land owned by Edward Barrett. His grand-daughter Elizabeth Barrett Browning would later be celebrated as one of the greatest poets in the English language, but Edward put the family in a notable position long before that as the brilliant steward of the family’s wealth granted by Cromwell’s parliament, and also as the developer of what would become one the wealthiest ports in the New World.

 

By the late 1700s, Jamaica was the world’s leading sugar producer. This was certainly no place more evident that than in Falmouth and the 88 sugar estates in the region. The town was meticulously mapped out and in the Colonial tradition, streets were named after British royalty and heroes—King Street, Queen Street, Rodney Street (after 18th century naval leader Admiral Lord George Rodney) and Wellington Street (after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington recognised as Britain's greatest military commander). Flush with the wealth from their holdings, planters were eager to show off their good fortune.