Greenwood Great House

Greenwood was built around 1800 for the Barrett family, whose Jamaican estates paid for a good deal in England and one of whose descendants was the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Unlike Rose Hall it was not burned in the 1831 rebellion and was never fully emptied, so what is inside is largely original: family portraits, a court barometer of 1780, a rare Steinway of the 1850s, and a collection of early musical instruments including a barrel organ, a polyphon and a set of musical glasses that the guide will play. The tour is small, informal and unusually frank about how the wealth was generated, and the veranda looks out over the coast.

What you actually see

• The instrument collection - barrel organ, polyphon and musical glasses, played.
• The original contents - furniture, portraits and books left in the house.
• The library - Barrett family books, some from the eighteenth century.
• The veranda view - the coast from the hillside.

When to go

December to April is the dry season. Tours run through the day and take about forty-five minutes. It is far quieter than Rose Hall, and weekday mornings often mean a tour of two or three people.

Honest expectations

It is small and the tour is short. The house is privately owned and maintenance is modest compared with Rose Hall's restoration. The road up from the coast is narrow. Anyone expecting spectacle will prefer Rose Hall; anyone wanting the actual history will prefer this.

Nearby

Rose Hall is fifteen minutes west; Falmouth is twenty minutes east.