St Nicholas Abbey

St Nicholas Abbey is located in Saint Peter, Barbados, a plantation house, museum and rum distillery.Colonel Benjamin Berringer built the house in 1658.

This house is one of only three genuine Jacobean mansions in the Western Hemisphere. It is similar to the English Jacobean manor houses of the first half of the seventeenth century, the period between the Tudor and Georgian styles, beginning in the reign of James I.

St Nicholas Abbey has no church connection, it has always been a sugarcane plantation house. The exact origin of its name is not known but rumour has it that it was named after George Nicholas, husband to Berringer's granddaughter, Susanna.

Berringer was killed in a duel with his neighbor, Sir John Yeamans, who then married Berringer's widow and claimed the abbey as his property. In 1669, the Colonel's children took the matter to court and were awarded ownership of the property. Sir John and his wife then moved to the United States, where they helped found South Carolina. The house was later acquired by the eminent baronet, planter and legislator, Sir John Gay Alleyne, through his marriage to Christian Dottin. He lived there from 1746 until his death in 1801. Alleyne family traditions hold that Sir John planted the impressive mahogany avenue leading to Cherry Tree Hill.

The house passed by marriage to Charles Cave in 1834.

The abbey was no longer a functioning plantation after 1947. Sugar has been grown on the plantation since 1640 and there is still the evidence of the mill and sugar making edifices. Sugar was processed on the property until 1947, the cane is now trucked eight miles to the Portvale Sugar Factory for processing.

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