Halse Hall is a

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

great house A great house is a large house or mansion with luxurious appointments and great retinues of indoor and outdoor staff. The term is used mainly historically, especially of properties at the turn of the 20th century, i.e., the late Victorian or ...

in Clarendon,

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

. During the

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occupation of Jamaica the estate was known as "Hato de Buena Vista". In 1655, following the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

capture of Jamaica the site was given to Major Thomas Halse who came from

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with Penn and Venables. Here he raised hogs, grazed cattle and built Halse Hall. The house had thick walls and served as the centre of the estate and a rallying point for defence. At the time of Thomas Halse death in 1702, the Great House was just a single-storey building. By the late 1740s the building was owned by his son, Francis Saddler Halse, who developed the property into a more imposing and beautiful two-storey structure. A new entrance was erected, accessed by an elaborate arrangement of stone steps flanked by columns and capped with a fanlight. A peaked portico was added later. The Halse Hall Burial-Ground contains a tomb of the Halse family— Major Thomas Halse (d. 1702) and Thomas Halse (d. 1727). The property belonged to

Henry De la Beche Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche KCB, FRS (10 February 179613 April 1855) was an English geologist and palaeontologist, the first director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, who helped pioneer early geological survey methods. He was the ...

who stayed there during 1823–24, while he made his geological survey of Jamaica. His ''Notes on the present condition of the negroes in Jamaica'' was based on his experiences on the estate. In December 1835 the estate was owned by the Hibbert family who received £3,523 11s 9d compensation when the 172 enslaved Africans were emancipated. In 1969 it was purchased by Alcoa Minerals of Jamaica who added another wing. Halse Hall is the oldest English building in Jamaica which is still used as a residence.Halse Hall
Jamaica Travel and Culture, accessed 18 July 2010

References

External links

* List of Plantation Great Houses in Jamaica {{Plantation Great Houses in Jamaica Great Houses in Jamaica Buildings and structures in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica Plantations in Jamaica