The State House

On a hilltop over King’s Square stands the distinctive white State House (corner of King St. and Princess St., 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Wed., except holidays, admission free), the 17th-century colony’s first stone building—and the only structure of the period that survived. Built in 1622, it was used alternately as a munitions storage depot, a courthouse, and home of the world’s oldest parliament outside of Britain. For 200 years, the State House was the seat of government for the colonial General Assembly’s meetings. It is constructed of sturdy limestone blocks set in a mortar of turtle oil and lime; it’s believed some of the island’s first West Indian slaves may have helped to build it, introducing new methods at a time when cedar-framed structures were the norm. An original third story used for holding gunpowder was removed during 1730 renovations. It was restored again in 1969. Most notoriously, the State House was the venue for more than two dozen witch trials over the colony’s first century, which, as in similar instances throughout Europe and America, resulted in the public hanging, burning, or torture of innocent women. Since 1816, the State House has been rented for the annual sum of a single peppercorn by Bermuda’s oldest Masonic lodge, St. George No. 200 of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. The paltry due is paid at a colorful public ceremony in the town square every spring, attended by the Governor and Bermuda Regiment.