AT A GLANCE
Why go?
On the eastern edge of Independence Square, the historic heart of Basseterre, the Immaculate Conception Co-Cathedral rises in cool grey stone, an ornate and quietly stately landmark in a Caribbean capital better known for beaches and sugar-rum history. Built in its present form in the late 1920s and raised to co-cathedral status in 1981, this Roman Catholic church is the spiritual anchor of St. Kitts and a striking survivor of a faith that was once outlawed on the island.↗↗
For visitors, its appeal is simple but strong: a beautifully proportioned cathedral you can walk into free in the middle of town, easy to pair with the colonial streets, markets and memorials of central Basseterre, and a tangible link to the island's Portuguese, Irish and French Catholic past.↗↗
From banned worship to a co-cathedral
The story told by this site reaches back to Basseterre's French beginnings, when Jesuits built a Catholic church dedicated to Our Lady. That first Notre Dame was burned in 1706 during the Anglo-French conflict and was later rebuilt and rededicated as St. George's Anglican Church. When the English took control in 1713, public Catholic worship was forbidden, and the faithful were forced into private devotion for over a century.