Legal/Heritage Protection, Research & Information (HPRI)
Mountain River Cave St. Catherine
The legal arm of the Division provides corporate legal services to the organisation and its Board of Trustees. The Division declares sites National Monuments and designates sites as Protected National Heritage. Under the Jamaica National Heritage Trust Act of 1985, a site is declared a National Monument, if in the opinion of the Trust its preservation is a matter of public interest by reason of its historic, architectural, traditional, artistic, aesthetic, scientific or archaeological value.
Similar factors are taken into consideration when designating a site Protected National Heritage. Areas designated as such usually have group value particularly where buildings together make up an important architectural or historical unit, for example, Titchfield Hill in Portland and Port Royal, Kingston.
The Division also:
- Investigates sites for historicity
- Conducts archival, legal and oral research
- Maintains the JNHT website
- Produces scripts for storyboards, brochures and exhibitions
- Reviews leases, licences and contracts and carries out any other legal function that may arise..
Criteria for Declaring a National Monument
Old Salter’s Hill Baptist Church, St. James
To have a site declared a National Monument; it should meet one or more of the following criteria:
- Identify with Jamaican history
- Prominently identify with a great Jamaican personage
- Prominently identify with an important moment in Jamaican history
- Illustrate the culture of the prehistoric people associated with archaeological discoveries
- Identify with an architectural style related to an early master builder/architect
- Possess great antiquity
- Be an example of important regional or local architectural style
- Be of importance to the public’s imagination
- Possess great natural beauty
- Be a place name associated with the above criteria
