Trenchtown

During the colonial period, Trenchtown was part of the Greenwich Park estate of Daniel Power Trench (1813-1884), son of a wealthy plantation owner and slave-holder. Christopher Whyms-Stone asserts the settlement's name derives from Daniel Trench (rather than, for instance, taking its name from gulleys and trenches observable in its landscape).[1]

During the 1930s, Trench Pen, in southern St. Andrew (neighboring western Kingston), was a growing squatter settlement for the rural to urban migrants. Trench Pen was developed into Trench Town when the colonial government's Central Housing Authority (CHA) initiated a model township project which included owner occupied housing, rental social housing, schools, a theatre (The Ambassador), a park (Vin Lawrence Park), YMCA & YWCA, health clinic and fire station. Approximately 200 acres (81 hectares) of Trench Pen was used to create Trench Town while the remaining land became known as Rose Town, a residential community. Many who came from rural Jamaica to find work settled in the western side of Kingston as there were available "idle" lands and also the area was a desirable location being close to downtown and the market district.

The new residences consisted of one- and two-storey 'knog' buildings, built in clusters or around a central courtyard with communal cooking and bathroom facilities. These residences became the famous Government Yards of Trench Town. Knog construction refers to a labor-intensive traditional method of construction where a timber-frame structure is in-filled with brick or rubble then covered with a wire mesh and plastered. The architecture used was that of a rural Caribbean vernacular with hip roofs and wide verandas. Trench Town was a planned community with a hierarchical grid of streets and central sewage and garbage disposal systems.

Trench Town became famous for the talent which emerged from the project. In the 1950s and 60s bread and milk were delivered door to door, each month the CHA would inspect the residences to ensure compliance and tenants paid their twelve shillings per month on time. Trench Town is mainly known for the vast number of musicians it produced. The community has also produced some of Jamaica's top professional, business and political leaders as well as famous sports and religious personalities. This small area contributed widely to global awareness of the impoverished and politically corrupt conditions in Jamaica.

Like the rest of Jamaica, Trench Town became unstable and dangerous in the early 1970s when politics became violent. The two major Jamaican political parties – the People's National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party – had emerged in Kingston and violently enforced code that ensured only their party's supporters had access to jobs and services. The lower part of Trench Town below Seventh Street was sympathetic to the JLP, which in the 70s put it at war with its northern neighbor Arnette Gardens, a PNP stronghold. The road connecting the two, Seventh Street, became the front-line in an all-out war which saw the entire two blocks of Government Yards between Fifth Street and Seventh Streets being destroyed. The community's and Jamaica's greatest challenge today is poverty.

Traditional community organizations such as Boys Town [YMCA] and Joy Town [YWCA] continue to contribute to the welfare of the residents. New organizations such as AIR (Agency for Inner-city Renewal), the Trenchtown Reading Centre [FACE Jamaica], and the Trench Town Development Association, were formed to increase positive social attitudes, increase literacy and encourage government spending and development in the area. Crime in the neighbourhood has declined; the murder rate in western Kingston has dropped since the mid-1990s.[2] The Prince of Wales has funded a regeneration project in Rose Town through his Foundation for Building Community.[3]

• Trench Town Culture Yard Museum
• Trenchtown Reading Centre
• Vin Lawrence Park (locally called simply 'the park')
• Trench Town Peace and Justice Centre

• Trench Town Primary School
• Trench Town Polytechnic College, Formerly Trench Town High School
• Iris Gelly Primary
• Charlie Smith High School
• Jones Town Primary

• DJ Kool Herc (Clive Campbell), DJ and rapper
• Alton Ellis, rocksteady singer and recording artist
• Dean Fraser, saxophonist and recording artist
• Joe Higgs, reggae musician and recording artist
• Knowledge (Anthony Doyley, Michael Smith, Delroy Fawlin, Michael Samuels, Earl MacFarlane, Paul Freeman)
• Bob Marley reggae singer, songwriter, guitarist and recording artist
• Massive Dread (Dennis James), reggae deejay
• Mortimer Planno, Rastafari elder
• Ernest Ranglin, composer, guitarist, and recording artist
• Collie Smith, West Indian cricketer
• Peter Tosh (Winston Hubert McIntosh) OM, reggae singer, guitarist, percussionist, recording artist
• Bunny Wailer (Neville O'Riley Livingston), reggae singer, songwriter, percussionist, and recording artist
• Delroy Wilson, ska, rocksteady, and reggae singer and recording artist
• Angela Todd, Doctor, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Private Practitioner for over 25 years

• TrenchTown Reading Centre
• VisitJamaica.com – Trench Town
• Aerial view
• Born In Trench Town documentary