Nicholas Abbey was built of locally obtained coral blocks in the 1650s and is one of the oldest standing plantation houses in Barbados. It is one of three Jacobean-style English manor houses in what was once British America (the others are Drax Hall in Barbados and Bacon's Castle, Williamsburg, Virginia). This photo shows the front entrance of the plantation house (the entrance portico was added long after initial construction); note the chimneys to the fireplaces. The site of the former slave village is very close to the house. The plantation itself, during the period of slavery, was large in terms of acreage and enslaved population by standards of the island. (For a history of the plantation, its main house, and its enslaved population, see Jerome Handler et al., Searching for a slave cemetery in Barbados [Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Center for Archaeological Investigations, Research Paper No. 59, June 1989], passim.)
Nicholas Abbey Plantation House, Barbados, 1985
SI-OB-501
1985
Nicholas Abbey Plantation House, Barbados, 1985
Slide, Handler, personal collection
English
Plantation Scenes, Slave Settlements & Houses
Caribbean--Barbados
Handler, Jerome; Tuite, Michael; Randall Ericson; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
NW0082