Cheshire Hall was set up by Thomas Stubbs, who had been encouraged by his brother, Wade, to leave his Home in England and develop a plantation on Blue Hills, modern day Providenciales. He divided his land into cotton and pastures to grow food for the owners, slaves and animals. Initially successful, Thomas fell on hard times and in 1810 Wade Stubbs purchased the land from his brother.
As the most accessible of the plantation sites it is probably the best known. Unfortunately it is at the heart of Providenciales and the site has been consistently encroached upon by development. So much so that today all that is really known, and left, is the main house and industrial compound. The slave quarters, burial sites, latrines and rubbish dumps have not been located and have probably been lost to development. Future development plans will really see all the remaining land surrounding the main complex being bulldozed away. This is a worry, as only at the end of 1999 a new structure was found on a nearby hill, but this was discovered only because of the proposed expansion of the government complex and is unlikely to be protected from demolition.
Cheshire Hall should be used as an example of what can happen due to development and that the existing plantations on other Islands will require much better protection, or at least better interpretation and understanding before they are put at risk.
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Turks and Caicos National Museum
Nigel Sadler |
