Cherry Garden Great House

Parish: St. Andrew

The Cherry Garden property was originally a sugar estate. Colonel Ezekiel Gomersall was the first owner. After Gomersall's death the property was passed into the hands of his second wife and nephew Ezekiel Dickinson. For many years the Dickinson family owned the property. After emancipation the property was administered by Joseph Gordon who came to Jamaica from Scotland as an attorney for a number of absentee owned sugar estates and later purchased several of them. He was the father of George William Gordon, National Hero of Jamaica.

In 1845, George William Gordon bought the property. He later expanded the acreage by purchasing adjoining lots. Gordon lived at Cherry Garden until he was arrested and later hanged for his alleged role in the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865.

The house as it now stands is largely the work of Oscar Marescaux who bought the property from Gordon's widow in the late 1860s. Marescaux was a powerful local banker. He extended and roofed the front and back patios and improved the interior with mahogany facings.
The main building, which is the Great House, is an impressive Jamaican Georgian structure, two storeys in height. Its architectural features would suggest that the date of the construction is during the mid-eighteenth century.

The main entrance boasts a double bifurcated stair that leads to an entrance portico, which is above an open cellar. This portico is supported by four 4" (100mm) cast iron columns with ornate capitals, while the floor is that of marble titles. This marble finish also extends to the entrance steps. The design concept made provisions for ventilation and illumination, in that the main walls boast a series of jalousie windows, which are punctuated by intermediary casements. These jalousie windows extended from the chair rail level up to the underside of the wooden beams or joist supporting the floor level above.

Cherry Garden is a private property.