Charles Leslie, writing in 1739, says of Jamaica: “One is not to look for the beauties of architecture here; the public buildings are neat but not fine. The churches in the town are generally in form of a cross, with a small cupola a-top, built high in the walls, paved within, and adorned with no manner of finery.” The churches, he says, except those at Spanish Town and Halfway-Tree, are “decent small houses, scarce to be known for such,” and he adds, “the clergy trouble them little, and their doors are seldom open,” in marked contrast to the present state of affairs. “The gentlemen’s houses,” he says, “are generally built low, of one storey, consisting of five or six handsome apartments, beautifully lined and floored with mahogany.... In the towns there are several houses which are two storeys, but that way of building is disapproved of because they seldom are known to stand the shock of an earthquake or the fury of a storm.” On Craskell and Simpson’s large map of Surrey, of the year 1763, is shown a view of a presumably typical Jamaica house, two storeys high, with an open veranda in front only. It is evident from what Long says that, at all events for the first century of the island’s occupation by the British, not much attention was paid to domestic architecture by the planters of the island. “It is,” he says, “but of late that the planters have paid much attention to elegance in their habitations; their general rule was to build what they called a makeshift; so that it was not unusual to see a plantation adorned with a very expensive set of works, of brick or stone, well executed, and the owner residing in a miserable thatched hovel, hastily put together with wattles and plaster, damp, unwholesome, and infested with every species of vermin. But the houses in general, as well in the country parts as in the towns, have been greatly improved within these last twenty years.” In this connection mention may be made of the aqueducts on some of the sugar estates, which are amongst the best pieces of architectural work in the island. They and some of the old stone bridges compare more than favourably with the modern bridges, many of which—excellent monuments of engineering skill as they may be—their best friends would never venture to call works of art. Moreover the stone bridges will probably be standing when the iron ones have perished by decay.