Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in St. Ann carries a rich legacy that dates back to the early days of Jamaica’s Spanish colonization. Its origins trace to 1534, when the Spanish settlement of Sevilla la Nueva was relocated inland to higher ground. There, Abbot Peter Martyr of Angleria from Italy began constructing a cut-stone church known as the Peter Martyr Church. Though intended as a significant religious site, the church was left incomplete when the Spanish administrative center moved to Spanish Town later that same year. Historian Hans Sloane later described the unfinished structure as crafted from stone resembling marble, quarried from nearby hills, with intricate features like a fine west gate and a relief of Christ’s crowned head above the door. Over the years, however, neglect and shifting colonial priorities allowed the structure to fall into ruin, prompting British historian Edward Long in 1770 to criticize the lack of preservation for Spanish architectural contributions …
