Kingston to Buff Bay via Blue Mountains B1 road route

A non-highway run from Kingston to Buff Bay in Portland Parish follows the B1 through the Blue Mountains, covering about 59.1 kilometres (36.72 miles) in roughly two hours and 32 minutes.

The route heads east from Liguanea in St. Andrew along Old Hope Road past Oak Gardens, with the Jamaica Bauxite Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) headquarters and the Scientific Research Council on one side and Garden Boulevard on the other. Near Mona Heights it reaches Papine Square, where Hope United Church, the University of Technology (UTech) and John Golding Road — linking to the University of the West Indies and August Town — sit close by. North on Gordon Town Road, landmarks include Papine High School, the Vocational Training Development Institute (VTDI), Lookout, the Hope River Dam and Grove Primary School before Coupe Bridge and the turn onto Irish Town Main Road, also known as Newcastle Road.

Irish Town brings the police station, several churches, Café Blue and Strawberry Hill Road. At Craighton, the Craighton Blue Mountain Coffee Estate includes Craighton House, built around 1805 and named for first owner George Craighton. Set about 2,600 feet above sea level, the house has been renovated while keeping its character and has been linked to Sir John Grant, the Earl of Elgin, Sir Henry Blake — governor of Jamaica in 1880 — and artist Marianne North, whose works are shown at Kew in England. Known for coffee in the 1800s, the estate was bought in 1981 by Japan’s Ueshima Coffee Company (UCC), which revived cultivation; UCC Blue Mountain Coffee Jamaica Limited now uses the building for offices and marketing.

Beyond Red Light, Catherine’s Peak rises near Newcastle at about 1,520 metres (4,987 feet). Newcastle, in the Blue Mountains of St. Andrew, began as a British military hill station and is now a Jamaica Defence Force training camp. Construction started in 1841 under Major General Sir William Gomm after yellow fever devastated troops in Kingston; the British Board of Ordnance approved a permanent barracks that December. By 1842 only 24 of 197 soldiers stationed there died, and mortality kept falling. Britain used the post until 1959, including by Canadian regiments in World War II. It later trained the West Indies Federation’s Federal Defence Force, and after Jamaica’s independence on 6 August 1962 it passed to the Jamaican government. Two small cemeteries still mark soldiers who died there.

Crossing Hardware Gap, the road leaves St. Andrew for Portland past Green Hills, Old Tavern Coffee Estate, Section and Cascade — with Cascade Primary and Junior High and Cascade Falls (One Drop Waterfall) — then Green Hill, Cedar Valley, Wakefield and Spring Hill. Balcarres takes its name from Alexander Lindsay, sixth Earl of Balcarres, governor general from 1795 to 1801 and a controversial figure in the Second Maroon War. Further on, Tranquility, Rose Hill, Cotton Tree, Charles Town — with the Charles Town Maroon Council, museum and asafu yard — and White River lead into Buff Bay, where streets such as Thompson Avenue and Baker Street serve the fire station, library and links toward Orange Bay and the Northern Coastal Highway.