Princes Town: The Town Two Princes Named

The mission

The town began as the Amerindian Mission of Savana Grande — "big savannah" — one of the early Spanish missions. For most of its early life it was exactly what the name said: a mission settlement in open country.

The royal visit

In 1880, two of Queen Victoria's grandsons — Prince Albert and Prince George, the boy who would grow up to be King George V — visited Trinidad and came to Savana Grande. The town was renamed Princes Town in their honor. Each prince planted a poui tree at the Anglican church; a historical marker records Prince Albert's tree, and the trees still survive today, more than 140 years later.

Locals pronounce it "Princess Town," and they'll correct you gently if you get it wrong.

Cocoa, coffee, and the sugar years

Princes Town grew as an agricultural center — cocoa and coffee first, then sugar, which built the town into the major administrative and shopping center for a large part of south Trinidad. When the sugar industry closed in 2003, hundreds of workers were left on the breadline and the town felt it. But market towns are resilient: the farms adapted, the market kept trading, and Princes Town kept being the place the surrounding countryside comes to do business.

Where doubles was born

Here is the town's greatest claim, and it's verified: doubles was invented in Princes Town.

In 1936, Emamool "Mamoo" Deen and his wife Raheman Rasulan Deen started selling curried channa on fried bara to estate workers — from a freight bicycle, out of a pigtail bucket, in a yellow wooden box. Customers started asking for the bara to be "doubled up." The name stuck, and the national dish was born.

The Ali family carried it forward: Mamoo's brothers-in-law Asgar and Ashraff "Choate" Ali expanded from Princes Town, and in 1938 Asgar Ali moved from Fairfield to San Fernando — the beginning of the Ali's Doubles line that still runs in Vistabella today. Every doubles you've ever eaten traces back to a bicycle in Princes Town.

The sacred theater

On the outskirts of town sits Cedar Hill Village, generally regarded as the first place in Trinidad where Ramleela was performed — the Hindu folk theater of the Ramayana, staged in the weeks before Divali. Its amphitheatre ranks among the best open-air theatrical venues in the country, and thousands attend every year for the performances and the burning of Rawan's effigy.

Just outside town, Iere Village holds three firsts: the first Presbyterian church, the first Islamic mosque, and the first government-funded school in Trinidad. One small village, three milestones.

Stick-fighting and Princes Town Day

Princes Town remains the center of Carnival stick-fighting — the traditional martial art with roots in African combat traditions, still contested every Carnival season. And every January 20, the town celebrates Princes Town Day under the regional corporation: the borough's birthday, south-central style.

What to see

• The poui trees at the Anglican church — planted by two princes in 1880. The historical marker tells the story.
• Cedar Hill — the Ramleela amphitheatre. Come in the weeks before Divali.
• Iere Village — three national firsts in one small village.
• The market — the town's beating heart, serving the whole surrounding countryside.

Princes Town doesn't shout. It lets the royal trees, the sacred theater, and the doubles do the talking. Listen.