Holetown, A History Capsule


Holetown was one of the earliest settled towns in the English Caribbean. At a time when only St. Christopher had a settlement, Anglo Dutch merchant Sir William Courteen diverted from joining Thomas Warner in St Christopher to settle Barbados as a plantation colony of England.

Courteen owned a fleet exceeding 20 vessels and was a great benefactor to at least two English Kings. He was therefore easily able to secure a patent for ownership and settlement of Barbados. This was after his Chief Captain Henry Powell had stumbled upon the island after a severe storm in 1625.

By February 1626/7, Courteen and a group of businessmen arrived at the Hole and set about cultivating the island which had already been claimed by Powell on his 1625 visit. Within another year, Holetown had been established as the beach head from which the rest of Barbados would eventually become the prime jewel in the English crown.

Holetown boasts a series of firsts in Barbados, simply by virtue of that act of nature in 1625 and the subsequent Settlement visit of 1626/27. Among others:

• At Holetown, the first two modern streets were built in Barbados
• The island’s first English place of worship, God’s little acre
• The first Africans arrived in Barbados.
• The first governor’s house – at Mount Standfast.
• The first major fortification in Barbados – the Hole fort
• The first five plantations developed in Barbados.

From the names of the early plantations, it is clear that there was an Indian presence in Barbados before the arrival of the English Settlers. These five plantations in chronological order of settlement were and are:

1. The Indian River Plantation now known as Lascelles/Blowers
2. The Fort Plantation later separated into Trents and Porters
3. Powell’s Plantation, first governors’ house, now Mt. Standfast
4. The Corne Plantation, later becoming Sandy Lane/Bennetts
5. The Indian Plantation Eastward, later called Spring Head/Apes’ Hill.

 Within months of Courteen’s Settlement, Scotsman James Hay, First Earl of Carlisle, had acquired a similar patent from the King for proprietary ownership of Barbados. His Rawdon Syndicate of Merchants, led by Sir Charles Wolverston, and later by Henry Hawley, was forced to divert south where they eventually settled Bridgetown. By 1630, Wolverston’s superior numbers and money forced the Courteen merchants into submission and Holetown thereafter became a town secondary in political status to Bridgetown.

Holetown however maintained the nostalgia of  Prime Settlement and became the hub of economic activity when Sugar soon afterwards became King.

Many of the senior families including the Alleynes’, Lascelles, Trents’, Gibbes, Willings, Dottins’, Blowers, Porters, sought property in Holetown, some of which remained connected, even if only by name, until recently.

Excerpts taken from “Holetown Barbados, Settlement revisited” 2004