Not an abbey at all (and never was), this former sugar plantation is an example of a stone house built by a wealthy planter in the mid-17th century. The Jacobean great house is two stories and has seven bedrooms. The upstairs is off limits but the guided tour of the main floor included information about a couple of unique pieces of furniture and some extremely beautiful shell art pieces. Oddly, there were also a couple of cases of stuffed birds, but I suppose it’s no different then stuff moose or dear heads mounted on walls. The house is oriented so there is a cross breeze front to back, taking advantage of the wind’s cooling quality.
Shell art
The guided tour included a glass of rum punch (or pineapple juice), a run tasting and an 18 minute film from 1935, showing the owner at the time making the trip from England via boat, life on the plantation harvesting sugar cane and making rum. He also explained how the windmill would be manually (or rather with the labor of a beast of burden) to catch the trade wind from one direction and then another. Fascinating.
This windmill just down the road from St. Nicholas Abbey, is Barbados only currently working windmill
We had lunch at the cafe. I had something called “fish balls” which were delicious.
Lunch at St. Nicholas Abbey