Cheshire Hall Plantation
| Cheshire Halll Plantation | |
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| Location: | 21°46’48"N, 72°15’8"W |
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The Cheshire Hall Plantation on the Blue Hills is the best preserved set of plantation-era ruins on Providenciales and thus the most important site for cultural heritage on the island, itself the most populous island of the Turks and Caicos Islands. The main house, Cheshire Hlll, now stands in ruin within the plantation.
The plantation is today in the care of the Turks and Caicos National Trust.
History
The Plantation was founded by Thomas Stubbs, brother of Wade Stubs whose own plantation, Wade's Green Plantation is also now in the hands of the Turks and Caicos National Trust; Wade convinced his brother to come over from Britain to seek his fortune in the islands, which he did, settling in the hills of Blue Caicos (as Providenciales was then known) and naming the new plantation after his home county, Cheshire.
Thomas divided his land into cotton and pastures to grow food for the owners, slaves and animals. Cheshire Hall and the other buildings of the plantation were constructed from locally cut limestone. Though initially successful, Thomas fell on hard times and in 1810 Wade Stubbs purchased the land from his brother.
Wade Stubbs had been a plantation owner in America, but in the American Revolution he remained a loyalist and was one of many who left the Thirteen Colonies afer the war to settle in the islands.
Up to the early 1800s, Cheshire Hall was the most important site on Providenciales and at its height was comprised of about five thousand acres and employed hundreds of slaves.
The plantation today
The buildings are in ruins but provide a glimpse of the days of their prosperity. Cheshire Hall has several ship graffiti inscribed on a lower exterior wall at the rear of the house. Cheshire Hall is recognized as the most important of the pre-modern historical sites on Providenciales.
The grouds of the estate contain many species of plant and insects and birds which are attracted to the flowering and fruit-bearing plants.
See also
Outside links
- Cheshire Hall: Turks and Caicos National Trust
