Cheshire Hall Plantation
Cheshire Hall Plantation was a sisal and cotton plantation in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, owned by the British Loyalist Thomas Stubbs from the late 1700s until 1810 and afterwards by his brother Wade Stubbs. A portion of the former plantation is currently owned and managed as a historical site by the Turks and Caicos National Trust.
Background
Cheshire Hall is located on a hilltop near the downtown area of Providenciales, Turks and Caicos.As part of the end of the American Revolutionary War, the 1783 Treaty of Paris transferred Great Britain's possession of Florida to Spain in return for ownership of the Bahamas, which at the time included Turks and Caicos. Many of the Loyalist settlers in Florida did not want to live under Spanish rule and received compensatory land in Turks and Caicos. Wade Stubbs was one of the Loyalists who received land in North Caicos and developed a cotton plantation known as Bellefield and then later as Wade's Green.
Thomas Stubbs was encouraged by his brother, Wade, to move from England and become a planter. The Stubbs family were salt producers in Cheshire, England. Stubbs named the plantation after his home county and began to grow sisal and sea island cotton. The buildings on the site were built from locally cut limestone. At its peak of operations, Cheshire Hall consisted of approximately 5,000 acres and was worked by hundreds of slaves. The house and estate were the largest on the island at the time. However, low water availability and pest infestations diminished the plantation and Thomas eventually sold the land to his brother in 1810.