Phillippo Baptist Church stands a few blocks from the main square, named after James Phillippo, the English Baptist missionary who arrived in Spanish Town in 1823 and spent the rest of his life in Jamaica. The church he built became the centre of a community that included a school, a relief fund, and a network of "free villages" — purpose-built settlements where formerly enslaved people could live independently after emancipation.
The building dates from 1827 in its original form, though it has been rebuilt and modified several times since. It is still an active congregation. The churchyard contains the graves of Phillippo and several of the early congregation members. For those interested in the history of emancipation in the Caribbean, the church is a significant site — it represents a direct link between the Baptist missionary movement and the social infrastructure that allowed freedom to mean something in practice.