A Colonial Governor Took Church Land to Build King’s House. He Basically Sold It to Himself

• King’s House sits on land once owned by the Church of England
• A colonial governor dislodged the bishop to acquire it
• The proceeds were used to buy the church its Nuttall land instead
• All former Church of England land was transferred to the Diocese in 1964

The land on which King’s House, the official residence of Jamaica’s governor-general, now sits was originally the Bishop’s Lodge, owned by the Church of England, according to an Anglican source cited by the Gleaner. Sir John Peter Grant, a former governor of Jamaica, dislodged the bishop from the property and, in the source’s blunt framing, essentially sold himself the site and the 200 acres of land that is now King’s House.

The £5,000 Grant paid for the land was used to purchase what became the church’s Nuttall property instead, the site that today houses Nuttall Hospital, St Hugh’s Preparatory School and the Anglican Church House in St Andrew, all owned by the Incorporated Lay Bodies of the Church of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. The Reverend Ernle Gordon, rector of the Church of St Mary the Virgin, confirmed the account and added a further detail: the church separately holds at least 100 acres in Irish Town, part of a broader landholding that traces back to the same colonial-era transfers.

All lands in Jamaica formerly owned by the Church of England were transferred to the Jamaican Diocese by Queen Elizabeth II in 1964, Gordon said, the moment the property arrangement Grant’s 19th-century deal had created became fully the local church’s own to manage, rather than an asset administered from England.

The 2011 dispute that surfaced this history was itself a live property fight: Urban Development Corporation managing director Joy Douglas suggested the UDC had its eye on the Nuttall property for a Cross Roads redevelopment programme, and disclosed plans to amend the UDC Act to remove a clause requiring the corporation to acquire land before beginning redevelopment activities, a proposal that sent what the Gleaner described as ripples of anger through the diocese. The church called the UDC’s posture worrisome, a modern echo, given the property’s own origin story, of exactly the kind of state pressure on church land that built King’s House in the first place.

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