Drax Hall Estate: Jacobean Great House of St. George Parish, Barbados

Barbados National Trust programs encourage locals, residents, and visitors to eyeball the 350+-year-old private residence and working plantation through annual hikes and January through March open-house fundraisers. They furnish unique opportunities for agriculture, architecture, culture, horticulture, and history buffs and island visitors to experience physical contact or proximity since Drax Hall Estate otherwise is closed to the public. They therefore give glimpses of one of the island’s biggest, earliest cash crop-producing properties, whose expanses still claim much of the eastern portion of the central insular parish of St. George.

Anecdotes and documents indeed hint at William Drax's (died 1632) sons James (died 1662) and William (died 1669) as among the first English migrants in the late 1620s. 

Tradition implicates a cave and £300 as the first dwelling and initial investment prefatory to:

• annual revenues of £10,000+;
• large landownership and tobacco production by the 1630s;
• pioneer introductions of sugar cane and west African slaves in the 1640s.

Timing joins with savvy alliances and associations to elucidate politico-economic successes of Sir James in Barbados and William in Jamaica. Posterity knows of interactions with:

• Dutch and Jewish settlers experienced in northeast Brazil’s pre-1630 sugar cane cultivation;
• Influential families through James’ sister Frances marrying Christopher Codrington (died 1656) and son Henry wedding Lady Frances, daughter of John Tufton, 2nd Earl of Thanet (died 1664), and Dorothy Lovelace, daughter of John Lovelace, 2nd Baron Lovelace of Hurley (died 1670). 

Historians link the introduction of windmills for sugar cane-crushing with the brothers Drax. But security for officeholders and successions in ownership nowadays make tedious checking paper trails and urban legends against physical evidence at Drax Hall built in:

• 1650 on Barbados for father and son managers James and Henry (died 1682);
• 1669 on Jamaica for father and son managers William and Charles (died 1721).

Funders and hikers nevertheless need stress less over coral-stoned, red-roofed Drax Hall’s sustainability on Barbados than preservationists and scientists over Jamaica’s owner-changed, use-modified Drax Hall.

Yearly sojourns by Sir Richard Drax (born January 29, 1958) from Dorset’s Charborough House indeed operate to keep the Barbados landmark culturally enriching, educationally entertaining, and geo-historically enthralling. 

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Gun Hill Signal Station was built in 1818 as one of six signal stations for external and internal security of Barbados.
Sited west of nearby Drax Hall, Gun Hill gives sweeping views of capital, Bridgetown, and Carlisle Bay, 6-plus miles (9.6 km) to southwest, from perch atop precipitous central highlands cliffs.
Fusilier Road, Gun Hill, Saint George Parish, central Barbados; Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007, 14:53: SamBlob, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GunHillEntrance.jpg

classic Jacobean architecture of Drax Hall: corner finials, steep gable roofs, casement gable windows
Drax Hall, Bowling Alley Hill, Saint Joseph Parish, east central Barbados: CC BY SA 3.0, via CulturalStudies4@Wikispaces @ http://culturalstudies4.wikispaces.com/architecture+-+barbados; Nathan Fisher, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drax-hall-plantation.gif

Charborough House is home and family seat for Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (born January 29, 1958).
Serving since 2010 as Conservative Member of Parliament (M.P.) for South Dorset, the retired British Army Coldstream Guards officer and former reporter journeys yearly to family's working plantation on Barbados.
Dorset, South West England: John Lamper, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charborough_House_1.jpg

"The Island of Barbados"; ca. 1694 oil on canvas by Isaac Sailmaker (Zeilmaker) (1633 - June 28, 1721)
At time of painting, Drax Hall plantation had been in operation for over half a century (50 years-plus).
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, southwestern Connecticut's Gold Coast: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isaac_Sailmaker_-_The_Island_of_Barbados_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

1686 map by Philip Lea (flourished ca. 1683-1700) with symbols for cattle mills, water mills, and windmills ("all of which are imployed in the grinding of sugar canes")
North is oriented to right. Drax Hall and the plantation's windmills (Drax Hope) are depicted (center).
Philip Lea: A new map of the Island of Barbadoes (1686): Norman B. Leventhal Map Center (Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/normanbleventhalmapcenter/8642371911/

the island of Barbados; 1736 hand-colored, engraved atlas map with pictorial relief; includes churches, forts, plantations, submerged rocks, windmills, etc.
North oriented to left. Drax Hall is listed in southeastern Saint George Parish (upper right of blue-outlined parish in center).
Herman Moll: The Island of Barbadoes. Divided into its Parishes (1736): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moll_-_The_Island_of_Barbados.png

Connors, Michael. 2009. Caribbean Houses: History, Style, and Architecture. New York NY: Rizzoli.

“Drax Hall.” Barbados.org > Things To Do > Attractions & Sightseeing > Historic Places. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://barbados.org/drax.htm#.Vc3zWiiWE5Q 

“Drax Hall.” Totally Barbados.com > Travel > Sightseeing > Tourist Attractions. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.totallybarbados.com/barbados/Travel/Sightseeing/Tourist_Attractions/Drax_Hall/ 

“Drax Hall – Barbados Colonial Past.” The Holiday Place > Destinations > Caribbean and Costa Rica > Barbados > What to Do > Excursions and Attractions. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://holidayplace.co.uk/holiday/caribbean-and-costa-rica/barbados/what-to-do/264/drax-hall-barbados-colonial-past 

“Drax Hall Plantation.” Barbados Beaches Plus.com > Plantation or Great Houses > St. George. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.barbados-beaches-plus.com/drax-hall-plantation.html 

“Drax Hall Plantation.” Barbados Pocket Guide > Attractions > Attractions by Parish/Location > St. George. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.barbadospocketguide.com/barbados-attractions/attractions-by-parish-location/st-george/drax-hall-plantation.html 

“Drax Hall Plantation Yard, Barbados, 1971-72.” Image Reference NW0083, as shown on www.slaveryimages.org, compiled by Jerome Handler and Michael Tuite, and sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library. The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/slavery/details.php?categorynum=8,%20Slave%20Settlements%20and%20Houses&theRecord=51 

Lea, Philip. 1686. A New Map of the Island of Barbadoes wherein every Parish, Plantation, Watermill, Windmill & Cattlemill, is described with the name of the Present Possessor, and all things els Remarkable according to a Late Exact Survey thereof. London England: John Sellers.

• Available via Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at Boston Public Library @ http://maps.bpl.org/id/15748

Moll, Richard. 1736. The Island of Barbadoes. Divided into its Parishes, with the Roads, Paths, &c. According to an Actual and Accurate Survey. London England: Thomas Bowles and John Bowles.

• Available via David Rumsey Map Collection Database and Blog @ http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~3766~430102:Island-of-Barbadoes
• Available via Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at Boston Public Library @ http://maps.bpl.org/id/14244

Schomburgk, Sir Robert H. (Hermann). 1848. The History of Barbados; Comprising a Geographical and Statistical Description of the Island; A Sketch of the Historical Events Since the Settlement; and an Account of its Geology and Natural Productions. London UK: Longman, Brown, Green and Longman.

• Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/historyofbarbado00schouoft