WELCOME TO SOUTHLANDS
Southlands is a 37 acre parkland area in Bermuda and located in Warwick parish. The estate has wonderful garden pools, woodland areas, a beach of its own, a historic main house and limestone quarry gardens. In 1700s, the ministers of the Warwick's Christ Church used to live in this estate.
During those days when the island's oldest school Warwick Academy was going through a bad time, the ministers used to take classes at this estate. Over the years the estate changed many hands. There was a time in early 1800s when the limestone blocks from the quarries at the Southlands were used to construct many buildings at Hamilton City.
The earliest documented owner is Thomas Dunscomb and it was rented to William Astwood of Southampton around 1812 and later to Rev. James Morrison who operated a school at Southlands from 1839-1849.
One of the prominent owners of Southlands was James Morgan, a rich businessman who bought the property in 1913. He also bought some of the adjoining properties expanding the estate to about 80 acres. During his time, the estate went through many developments and beautification.
James Morgan was a generous man and donated large amounts for expansion of the parish school Warwick Academy. The road next to the school, Morgan's Road, was named after him.
He died in 1932. There is a large mausoleum in the Southlands estate where both James Morgan and his wife were buried.
In 1936 the house and land were sold to American Grace Metzger Torrey.
Brigadier Harry Dunbar Maconochie bought the property in 1946 and in 1990 it was acquired by the Willowbank Foundation who later sold it off to a group of businessmen in 2005.
After a lot of controversies and meetings with the government, in September 2010, it became almost certain that Southlands will remain in its natural state and the group will be instead allowed to build the luxury resort in a place called Morgan's Point in Southampton parish.
Welcoming Arms and Bermuda stone steps to Southlands, c.1930.
He converted the limestone quarries into beautiful quarry gardens. You will also find many garden pools and pathways in the estate. He also expanded the estate's main house.
Southlands is home to 13 species of tree found nowhere else on the island as well as the biggest Banyan grove in Bermuda — that is remarkably made up of just three trees.
It boasts nine gardens and six ponds — and the coral centre-pieces as well as the stone-walled edges to the ponds still remain intact, just.
Tangerine, mango, paw-paw and black ebony trees grow in this wilderness of exotic plants and trees.
As you go around the estate, you will also see yellowwood trees and the endemic wild Bermuda pepper trees. The estate stretches towards the south shore and has its own beautiful and secluded beach known as the Marley Beach.
James Morgan - Owner (1911 - 1932)
