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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Natricia Duncan Caribbean correspondent in Hanover, Jamaica; photographs by William Richards

Secrets of Success: the church that served a plantation remains a monument of resistance

Two men on an overgrown, rocky landscape
‘If you’re afraid, you can’t stay here,’ says Lascelles Bailey (right), pictured with Dr Ivor Conolley on the Success plantation site. Photograph: William Richards/The Guardian

Standing amid the ruins of Success, a former sugar plantation in Hanover, rural Jamaica, there is a muted silence, interrupted by the occasional rumble of a vehicle passing, overripe cocoa pods falling to the ground and green iguanas scuttling across dying leaves on the estate floor.

Hidden from the lively community just outside its boundaries, the overgrown site today is a stark contrast to what would have existed there more than a century ago. One of more than 800 sugar plantations across the island, Success was once co-owned by Sir George Philips, one of the 11 men who financed the launch of the Manchester Guardian in 1821.

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