Protected Buildings

In addition to the historic homes and museums that are open to the public, the Trust owns and manages a portfolio of important historic buildings across the island, with the aim to preserve their architectural history for many generations to come. Most of them date from the 18th century or even earlier.  These properties were acquired gradually since the 1950s, through purchase, gift and bequest.

Many of these buildings are rented for residential or commercial use, with the rent being used to maintain the properties. A few of them were leased for long terms with protective covenants requiring that the lease holders would restore and maintain the properties to a high standard.

St. George’s World Heritage Site

The town of St. George’s and its related fortifications was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000. In addition to Tucker House and Globe Museum, the Trust owns nine other properties in St. George’s, all of which can be enjoyed from the exterior on a walking tour of the town.

Bridge House

Location: 1 Bridge Street, St. Georges NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Bridge House was originally a timber framed two-storey house built by Roger Bailey, a planter and shoemaker.  We do not know its construction date, but it was certainly there by the time of Richard Norwood’s 1662-63 survey.  In 1702, it was purchased by Captain John Fflolett and his wife Jane.  They embarked on major reconstruction of the house in stone, but they did not live to see it completed in 1708.  The refitting was certainly grand enough for the sixth Crown governor, Benjamin Bennett, who lived there from 1709 probably until his death in 1736. It has changed little since. Today’s name for the house is thought to refer to a bridge which used to exist nearby.

Buckingham

Location: 2 King Street, St. George’s NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Built around 1750 by Samuel Mills, who bought the lot for just five pounds, Buckingham remains largely unchanged – a rather plain two-storey Georgian house. Mills and his wife Sarah lived there with their sons Samuel and Thomas Burt. A kitchen wing was added to the north of the house during the 1860s. Samuel Crofts Rankin bought the house in 1901 and named it Buckingham.  The name may have been intended to complement another property he owned called Windsor.

Casino

Location: 21 Water Street, St. George’s NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

White House Built around 1716, Casino is a typical 18th century merchant’s house situated conveniently close to the wharf-side, with living quarters above and storage below. It is a good example of an early building which has survived relatively unchanged. It has a characteristic 18th century chimney at its western end and Flemish gables at the eastern end. Its most nefarious occupant was silversmith Joseph Gwynn, who in 1826 committed the first murder of a Bermudian in over 20 years. Casino acquired its name from Reginald Higinbothom who ran an illegal gambling den on the property during the 1920s.

Fanny Fox's Cottage

Location: 10 Governor’s Alley, St. George’s NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

FannyThis interesting cottage is an 18th century single-storey house with an original kitchen behind the hall. It is a good example of how Bermudian houses tended to grow over time. The earliest part of the building faces the road and was a two-room gable roof structure. The lot of land was originally granted in 1700 to Provost Marshal Edward Jones, who was dismissed for gross negligence. It was sold on to James Burchall in 1706 and he built the core of the house. By 1802, the property belonged to master mariner Henry Adams, whose wife left it to her husband’s nephew Benjamin Fox. The cottage gets its name from Fox’s wife, Frances Zuill, who was known as Fanny.

Old Rectory

Location: 1 Broad Alley, St. George’s NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

The Old Rectory was built by Captain George Dew around 1699, making it one of the oldest surviving houses in Bermuda. It is most notable for its asymmetric protruding porch room with its welcoming arms steps. The original building comprised the hall and chamber front section, and possibly the porch room. Although it was never owned by the church, nor was the official rectory, the house got its name from a previous owner, Reverend Alexander Richardson, rector of St. George’s, who was nicknamed ‘The Little Bishop’.

 

Reeve Court

Location: 3 King Street, St. George’s NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Reverend Thomas Holland built Reeve Court in 1705. However, one year later he and his wife Elizabeth left Bermuda for Virginia. They sold the house to Samuel Smith, who was a Colonel, Judge, Collector of Customs and member of the Governor’s Council. His son and grandchildren lived in the home for the next 50 or so years. It was purchased by Dr. Richard Tucker by 1760 and his daughter Elizabeth, married the merchant Thomas Reeve, from whom the house takes its name. Reeve Court is significantly larger than most buildings in St. George’s and was for centuries the tallest building in the town.

Samaritans' Cottages

Location: 27 Water Street, St. George’s NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

The Samaritans’ Cottages are excellent examples of early 18th century cottages in the prevailing architectural style of St. George’s when the town was rebuilt in stone after the hurricane of 1686. The eastern cottage possibly dates back as early as 1676, when William Pearman purchased a building on the site. The western cottage was built by Pearman’s daughter Martha and her husband Thomas Handy in 1719.  This particular plot was owned by accused witch Margery Potter, who was cleared in 1693 of the charge of casting spells on one John Middleton. The two cottages remained under separate ownership until 1786.

Samaritans' Lodge

Location: 29 Water Street, St. George’s OPEN DURING MUSEUM HOURS

LodgeLocated at the east end of the town at the junction of York Street and Water Street, Samaritans’ Lodge was built in 1844 as a storehouse, and became home to the International Order of Good Samaritans in about 1907. This was one of the friendly societies that provided essential support and welfare for the Black community in the period after emancipation. Since 1994 the building has housed the Bermudian Heritage Museum which has an exhibit based on the history of the friendly societies and the accomplishments of Black Bermudians. Samaritans’ Lodge is a stop on the African Diaspora Heritage Trail.

Stewart Hall

Location: 5 Queen Street, St. George’s OPEN DURING STORE HOURS

Stewart Stewart Hall is one of the largest and most elegant early 18th century homes in St. George’s. We know it was already standing when the land was granted to Walter Mitchell in 1707.  He was a third generation Bermudian – his grandfather having been one of the first colonists who came out on the ship the Plough in 1612. Mitchell married a wealthy widow and prospered in business, dying in 1731 as one of Bermuda’s richest men. The outbuilding is thought to have housed his enslaved people. The home was purchased by George Tucker in 1751 who made many changes to the interior configuration.  Stewart Hall gets its name from previous owner barrister Duncan Stewart. Surprisingly he never actually lived there.

Belair

11 Cobbs Hill Road, Paget NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

On more than two acres on Cobbs Hill Road overlooking Hamilton Harbour is Belair – a unique example in Bermuda of a West Indian plantation house. Surrounded by wide balconies, with a shallow sloping roof and extensive cellars, quoining It was built around 1815 by Francis Albouy who was a successful businessman in Demerara. He eventually returned to Bermuda where he served as a member of the Governor’s Council for many years. It remained in the Harvey family until 1900 and is now let on a long lease.

Cluster Cottage

Location: 37 St Mary’s Road, Warwick NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

 

Cluster Cottage is an early 18th century house which survives remarkably unaltered as an excellent example of early Bermuda domestic architecture. Parts of the house could date back to as early as the 17th century but the main east/west section probably dates from the early 18th century and the southern wings from the middle of that century. It has sturdy garden walls, a wooden porch and windows positioned close under the eaves.  All the rooms have tray ceilings joined at each corner with a natural cedar knee.  It is believed that the cellar space beneath the cottage was used as quarters for the enslaved people who lived there.

Devondale

Location: 33 South Road, Devonshire NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Devon Devondale is the largest of the old houses along South Road, Devonshire. This beautiful late 18th century Grade II listed house and 10 acres of woodland and farmland was transferred to the ownership of the Bermuda National Trust from the estate of Mrs. Jean Cox Spence who died in June 2012. The original house on this property was built some time before 1678 and re-built over the years. The current house was probably built in the 1730s. However, in 1953 there was a serious fire which gravely damaged the south wing. The stone arches and welcoming arm steps of the West Indian-influenced verandah survived the fire and great care was taken when sections of the house were rebuilt. The north wings of the house were comparatively untouched by the fire. By bequeathing this property to the National Trust, Mrs. Spence again connected, as one property under single ownership, two large Devonshire estates (Devondale and Locust Hall) that were once both owned by the same family before being divided into sections in 1857. Mrs. Spence’s legacy creates a 34-acre rural tract of land stretching from South Road to Middle Road, Devonshire. Under the National Trust’s ownership this land will be preserved for the benefit of Bermuda forever.

Mangroville Cottage

Location: 11 Judkin Lane, Hamilton Parish NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Across the lane from the North Nature Reserve sits Mangroville Cottage on a 2.7 acre site overlooking Mangrove Lake and effectively adding substantially to the land area of the reserve. It was left to the Trust in 2003 by Natalie North, a sports teacher at the Bermuda High School. Used in the 19th century as a post office, it was much altered in the 20th century, and today is leased for residential use. The house is surrounded by a lush garden that is full of wild freesias in the spring, and in the summer is shaded by an old Royal Poinciana tree. Behind the house and on the way to Arrowroot Lane are the remains of an orchard. Today is seems an odd place to have located a post office, but in those days a road ran from Tucker’s Town to Devil’s Hole north of the pond .

Palmetto House

Location: 74 North Shore Road, Devonshire NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

PalmettoThis handsome stone house was built around 1700 by William Williams, the third or fourth of that name to own the land on which it sits. It is roughly cruciform in shape and has hipped roofs rather than the more usual gable. The welcoming arms steps, the mounting block below, the double-flue chimneys and windows tucked under the eaves, are all typical early 18th century features. Palmetto House was one of many buildings in Devonshire appropriated by the War Department. Over the years it fell into serious disrepair until 1948 when Hereward Watlington came to the rescue, reinstating the house to its former glory.

Pembroke Hall

Location: 42 Crow Lane, Pembroke NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Pembroke Hall is an elegant building set in manicured gardens at the entrance to Hamilton. The original U-shaped house was built in the late 18th or early 199th century. The house is set on a slope and the single-storey wing on the north side, with its old hipped roofs and pilasters, is the least altered part of the building today. Cornelius Hinson owned the land all the way over to the North Shore at the time of his death in 1789 but it is likely that the present house was built by a later owner, Richard Wood who bought the property from Hinson’s heirs in 1820 for his daughter Frances Russell Wood and her husband Joseph Dill.  The Dills’ daughter Frances and her husband Thomas Reid inherited it. Mrs Reid’s brother, Lucas Dill, was a merchant in the West Indies and brought back many exotic trees which grace the grounds to this day. When Frances Reid died in 1913 she left the house to her cousin Lieutenant Thomas Dill, but the bulk of her fortune went to the Bermuda Cathedral endowment fund. For some of this period, the house was operated as a guest house. When Colonel Dill died in 1945, the property was left to his daughters. In 1981 Fidelity International bought the house, giving the freehold to the Trust, and retaining a long lease on the property. Fidelity undertook a careful restoration and expansion of the house for use as their international headquarters. They restored the original façade, preserving the hipped roof and pilasters, meticulously restoring the woodwork in the reception rooms and adding a sympathetic extension at the rear. The old fishpond on the site has been preserved, and recently the boathouse was rehabilitated.

School Lands Cottages

Location: 2, 4 & 6 School Lands Lane, Pembroke NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Situated in Pembroke are these three small houses which feature beautiful chimneys, an elegant buttery and an unusual set of lateral steps of a style normally found only in St. George’s. It was in the largest of these houses that as an enslaved woman, Mary Prince endured cruel treatment at the hands of ‘Captain I’ and his wife. Originally it was thought that these cottages had been built on so-called School Lands to generate income for the education of poor children.  This is not so, as School Lands were further east. Mary’s description in her famous narrative of 1831 leave little doubt that this was the house in which she spent some miserable years.

For more information on Mary Prince, view or download our Teacher Resource Guide Black History in Bermuda.

Ship's Inn

Location 89 Harbour Road, Warwick NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

shipThis tiny 19th century building on the edge of Darrell’s Wharf sits on a plot of just 0.053 of an acre.  It started life as a wharf and storehouse for the Darrell family who lived opposite at Harmony Hall.  Alfred Blackburn Smith bought the property in 1905 from Eliza Beltt Darrell. The building is much changed from its early days.  Family members remember swimming by Ship’s Inn, but it was never really a bathing house. In 1958 it was subdivided from the main house. It has certainly lived a varied life, being home to The Women’s Exchange Movement during the 1940s, a restaurant in the 1950s and since the 1970s a real estate office.

Springfield

Location : 29 Somerset Road, Sandys

The Springfield estate remained the property of the Hinson families until it was purchased by the Historical Monuments Trust in 1966.  The founder, Edward Hinson, was on the property by 1662. Prior to Springfield, we know there was a substantial two-storey post and plaster house with a thatched roof on the site. Edward left the property to his daughter Mary and it was she and husband Ephraim Gilbert who during the 1740s built the main part of today’s structure. The house was subsequently enlarged during the late 1700s, with the addition of the courtyard, slave house, a kitchen and the unusual smooth-roofed buttery, as well as additional rooms to the house.

The Keep at Royal Naval Dockyard

Location: Royal Naval Dockyard, Sandys

keepWhen the American Revolution deprived Britain of access to the ports of its former colonies on the eastern seaboard of America, it soon became obvious that Bermuda was ideally located to connect the British possessions in Canada and the West Indies.

In 1795 a base was commissioned at St. George’s, and in 1809 the Royal Navy acquired Ireland Island in the west end for the creation of a dockyard which would become the main British naval base in the western North Atlantic. The function of naval dockyards such as those at Gibraltar and Malta was essentially a civilian one: to repair and re-arm ships, to supply them with food, gunpowder and everything else they required as they patrolled the seas to protect the growing British Empire.

Building such a complex in Bermuda became important for the local economy, and ore then 1,000 Bermudians were employed in these civilian capacities at the height of operations in the 19th century. Because these functions were critical to the fleet, they were surrounded by heavy fortifications. In Bermuda, the fortifications surrounded the Dockyard on the three sides, with the major fort of the Keep at the northern end.

The first building constructed in the Keep was the Commissioner’s House. Designed as a prototype for buildings which would withstand the inhospitable climates of naval stations around the globe, a cast iron structural frame was fabricated in England and shipped to Bermuda for assembly. This sturdy construction, combined with hard Walsingham limestone, made Commissioner’s House a building that could withstand virtually anything. This experimental building is believed to have been first use of prefabricated cast iron in domestic architecture.

Much of Dockyard was built with convict labour, and more than 9,000 convicts were brought to Bermuda and housed in ships’ hulks. During the yellow fever epidemic of 1853, over 2,000 of them died here and were buried on Watford Island. In 1863 the last of the convicts were sent home or to Australia. The Keep saw service through two world wars in the 20th century, and was decommissioned in 1951 when it was bought by the Government of Bermuda. For many years it was left to deteriorate, along with other buildings in Dockyard. In 1974 Dr. Jack Arnell and Mr. Andrew Trimingham, leading a committee of the National Trust, succeeded in their campaign to convert the Keep into a maritime museum. The Government leased the Keep to the National Trust for 99 years, and the Trust has leased it to the Bermuda National Museum.

Tivoli

Location: 45 Middle Road, Warwick NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

tivoliTivoli is a notable and highly visible example of elegant domestic Victorian architecture. It was built soon after 1827 by Dr. John Frith on land given him by his father Sanders Frith of Cedar Hill. The house has handsome pilasters, exposed eaves and an octagonal entrance hall. The property spans 11 acres and includes the Higgs Nature Reserve to the south.