Port Antonio

Under Spanish rule the harbour was known as Puerto de San Antonio. After the English conquest, Portland became a parish in 1723, named after the Duke of Portland, then governor, and Port Antonio was planned as a naval stronghold. From 1729 the colonial government built Fort George on the Titchfield peninsula between the East and West Harbours, to guard settlers against Spanish attack from the sea and against the Maroons in the mountains, who made peace with the British in 1740.

The town's great age came in the 1880s, when Lorenzo Dow Baker started the banana trade in Jamaica and promoted Port Antonio to wealthy American travellers, who arrived on the banana boats. At its height, more ships sailed each week from Port Antonio than from Liverpool. A railway was built from Kingston through Spanish Town and Bog Walk mainly to serve the banana trade, and the town became the island's third-largest port.

In 1946 the Hollywood actor Errol Flynn arrived when his yacht was driven ashore in bad weather; he bought Navy Island and hundreds of acres along the Portland coast, and the town became a retreat for film stars. Hollywood has used it ever since, from the films of the 1940s and 1950s to Club Paradise, Cocktail, The Mighty Quinn and No Time to Die.

Port Antonio's culture comes from the banana trade, the mountains and the screen. "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)", Harry Belafonte's 1956 hit, was originally set at Boundbrook Wharf, where bananas are still loaded for Europe and the United States. The coast around town has been a film set for decades, from both versions of Lord of the Flies at Frenchman's Cove to Bond in No Time to Die, and the Fugees filmed the video for "Fu-Gee-La" at the Folly ruins and the cenotaph square. In 2024 J. Cole named a song after the town.

In the mountains behind the town live the Windward Maroons, descendants of people who escaped slavery and fought the British to a treaty in 1740. Moore Town, founded that year as New Nanny Town, and Charles Town keep a distinct identity and history, and the Blue and John Crow Mountains around them are a UNESCO World Heritage Site for their cultural as well as natural value.

The town itself is known for its friendliness and its distance from the resort crowds of the north coast; it has long been a hideaway for celebrities. Surfers ride the waves at Boston Bay, and rafting on the Rio Grande, one of the largest rivers in Jamaica, is among the parish's best-known outings.

Port Antonio had about 13,000 people in 1991, in a parish estimated at about 82,000. It is a working town as well as a resort: the island's third port ships bananas and coconuts, it is the bus hub for the north-east, and tourism is a major part of its economy. Portland is one of the rural areas of Jamaica, and the town is the market and transport centre for the villages along its coast and in the mountains.

The town sees far fewer tourists than the north-coast resorts, and its seclusion is much of its appeal. The railway to Kingston, built for the banana trade, no longer carries passengers, and the small Ken Jones Aerodrome west of town handled only about 8,500 passengers in 2001, so most people arrive by road. The coast east of town holds villas and small hotels, some of them retreats for wealthy visitors, alongside public beaches such as Winnifred, where local people have campaigned to keep access open in the face of development.

Portland is banana and coconut country, and the markets in the town centre are piled with tropical fruit. The town's small restaurants serve Jamaican home cooking — ackee and saltfish, the national dish, with curry goat, brown-stew chicken, oxtail and rice and peas, rice cooked with coconut milk and kidney beans — and there are also places serving seafood and vegetarian meals, and Italian and international food. There is also a restaurant serving Caribbean food at the Blue Lagoon itself.

Jerk — chicken or pork seasoned with a spicy marinade of allspice (pimento) and Scotch bonnet pepper, traditionally cooked over pimento wood — is well known in the parish, where the Boston Jerk Centre is an area known for jerked chicken, fish and pork. Patties, festival (slightly sweet fried bread) and bammy (cassava flatbread) are the everyday companions to a meal.

To drink there is rum at bars around the marina and in town, along with Red Stripe beer, Ting grapefruit soda, fresh juices and sorrel at Christmas.