Albion Great House Ruin

Located in Mile Gully, Manchester, the site remains one of the island’s most productive coffee estates- Albion Plantation. During the 1800s, the estate exported hundreds of tierces of coffee annually to London via ships. Overseers and attorneys managed day-to-day operations in the absence of the estate’s owners, with enslaved Africans making up their labor force. Coffee was the main export, but records also mention sugar, ginger, molasses, pimento, rum and cotton. By the 1840s, some of the parts were converted to livestock and pasture operations and it became known as Mile Gully.

Currently, the site is now in ruins but still shows signs of its Georgian Architecture, with thick stone walls, remnants of the gateway and secondary structure used for the storage or workers quarters. Additionally, a barbeque was once on the property that was believed to been used for coffee or pimento but has since been removed. The barbeque also served as an irrigation system that channels rainwater to catchment tanks to supply the plantation.

Though it currently remains in ruins, it once stood as one of the most productive estates and remains of significant importance to Jamaica’s colonial past.