Stewart Hall on Queen Street was already built when Governor Benjamin Bennett granted the land on which it stood to Walter Mitchell in 1707. An active militia commander and officer in HM Independent Company, Mitchell was a third-generation descendant of a family which emigrated to Bermuda on the Plough in 1612 and eventually settled in Southampton Parish. The house he built was one of the grandest of its day: a large two-storey hall and parlour house set right against the street, having two massive flanking chimneys and a steeply pitched gable roof. An even larger chimney was built on the end of the kitchen wing to the rear of the house. Over the centuries, no fewer than seven chimneys have been added to this building. Mitchell married Sarah, the widow of Daniel Johnson, through whom he acquired a wharf and lot to the east of Block House. In the 1720s Mitchell was an active architect. He supervised the construction of the new Government House and built Mitchell House, now the St George’s Historical Society Museum, for his nephew William. When he died in 1731, Walter Mitchell owned several ships and possessed furnishings, trade goods and gold worth more than £4,100, making him one of the richest men in Bermuda. Sarah Mitchell followed him to the grave two years later, and Stewart Hall was bequeathed to her daughter Martha, the wife of Alexander Herron. The Herrons spent the 1730s living in the house before they moved to the colony of Georgia where Alexander became lieutenant governor. In 1751 they sold the property to George Tucker, the colonial secretary.

George Tucker was an active politician and civil servant. He had inherited the posts of colonial secretary and provost marshal from his father who had served in those offices in the 1720s. He was a member of the governor’s council under both Popple governors. His house was a crowded one, since he had a wife, five children and 11 enslaved people.

Some of the enslaved workers serving Tucker’s household lived in the detached two-storey cottage to the northwest of the main house.Their work included looking after the small herd of livestock which Tucker kept in the yard. An archaeological excavation in 1991 uncovered a watering trough for these cattle, built directly over a mid 17th century grave dug long before Stewart Hall was built.

A probate inventory made after George Tucker died in 1766 reveals the wealth and refinement of the secretary’s home. He had created a ‘cross chamber’ on the ground floor by dividing the larger hall with a partition, reflecting the Georgian predilection for symmetry and its emphasis on creating private spaces by increasing the number of doorways in a house. Tucker had a writing closet off the hall where he attended to his official duties. Silver plate, Chinese porcelain, English salt-glazed stoneware and lead crystal graced the Tuckers’ dining room and exhibited their wealth and status to visitors.

George Tucker’s widow Mary lived in Stewart Hall until her death in 1787. British Army engineer Andrew Durnford rented the house for six years while he was working on the colony’s fortifications and building Durnford (see chapter 4). When the house was sold at auction by Tucker’s heirs in 1795, George Tucker’s niece, Hannah Stockton, purchased it. She died two years later, and the house went to her two young children.

The direct impact of the arrival of the British military in the 1790s can be seen in the fate of Stockton’s children. Her son John became a purser in the Royal Navy and her daughter Sarah married Lieutenant James Robinson of the Royal Fusiliers.

The Robinsons lived in Stewart Hall until 1819 when they departed for England and sold the house to silversmith John Trott Cox. He was responsible for the one-storey addition to the north which housed his workshop and retail store.

Barrister Duncan Stewart purchased the property in 1849 and, although he never lived in the house himself, the name Stewart Hall commemorates his ownership.

In the early 20th century it was owned by the Higinbothom and Clifford families before the Bermuda Historical Monuments Trust purchased it in 1949. For many years it housed the St George’s branch library. One of the largest of St George’s early 18th century houses, this important property is now owned by the Bermuda National Trust. Lili Bermuda Perfumery occupies Stewart Hall in 2025 and uses traditional methods to make perfumes on site in the property’s historic grounds.