FOR RENT For such Term of Years, as may be agreed on, That delightfully situated DWELLING-HOUSE, known by the Name of ‘Mount Wyndham,' in Hamilton Parish, and some time since occupied by Admiral Sir DAVID MILNE. The beautiful situation of this Dwellingcommanding as it does a view of the whole of the Islandsis too well known to require a description here.The Royal Gazette, 11 September 1838.In the world of inanimate things of heritage value there is perhaps no more forlorn an object than an historic building reposing in neglect. Such is the view of the historic “Mount Wyndham”, sitting atop one of the highest hills in Bermuda with the name of a larger geological phenonenon, though after which peak it was named is as broad a question as the horizon the house scans. Though the height on which this Georgian house was planted by one Richard Algate has unparalled views in all of Hamilton Parish, the vistas are obscured by a recent explosion of non-native jungle, while on the flanks of the hill of the original acreage are some of the early “condos” in Bermuda, a construction type that is unlikely ever to be claimed historic and which has gone “viral”, as they say in the twittering world of excess verbal rubbish in which we live.Symbolic of the early practicality of Bermudian buildings is the north wall of the main house, which is unabasedly mounted on a core of hard rock that yet projects out of the base of the structure, untrimed and unplastered, perhaps a marker to posterity that this, later the first Admiralty House in Bermuda, was a home founded not on a mountain of sand, but one of rock. Utterly exposed on “Mount Wyndham”, one of the highest peaks of Mount Bermuda, thus some 15,000 feet off the ocean floor, the house has withstood all that nature has thrown at it for two and a quarter centuries. But a fraction of the funds suggested to be expended on the widening of Town Cut in St. George's would rescue this historic building for the country, perhaps putting it under the jurisdiction of the Bermuda National Trust, which should perhaps be working to buy up such historic buildings of architectural and cultural heritage significance, in full concert with the laudable acquiring of open land for the birds, bees and undocumented Mexican Peppers.After that little political digression, one winds the Mount back to its origins in the 1782, a year before the Treaty of Paris which ended British rule in what became the United States of America. According to one of the splendid architectural history books, Hamilton Parish, published by the National Trust, Algate and his buddy, one David Foggo (from whom perhaps those of that name today descend in part) were here shipwrecked while on the continent was still awash in the blood of war. Perhaps through his marriage to Ruth Somersall in 1782, Algate acquired one of Bermuda's mountains and there erected a splendid house, the main façade and front door of which faces westward towards the Dockyard, then but perhaps a idea at the back of the minds of a few British naval officers. Mount Wyndham was later bought by Stephen Outerbridge in 1808 and it was he who leased the property for six years from December 1812 to the Royal Navy, as a suitable residence for the Admiral on the River St. Lawrence and Coast of America and North American and West Indies Station, which became shortened, in name at least, in 1813 to the North America Station.The original lease for that transaction has been donated to the National Museum by William Milner Cox, who owned Mount Wyndham for a period a few decades ago. It is dated 27 December 1812, as the winds of war with the United States were starting to increase and the first occupant was Vice Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, Bt, KB, who was followed by Vice Admiral the Hon. Sir Alexander Cochrane, GCB. It was the latter officer who was much involved in the sack of Washington during the War of 1812 and thereafter, being dissuaded from attacking Rhode Island, bombarded Fort McHenry at Baltimore instead, which resulted in sounds, not to say noise, that have reverberated down the years as “The Star-Spangled Banner”, much beloved now by our former enemy to the west.It was at Mount Wyndham that the final plan to sack the American capital was agreed, the “Burning of Washington” taking place in late August 1814, being facilitated by a fleet of the Royal Navy out of Bermuda. “There must have been a spectacular view from Mount Wyndham on August 2, 1814, when the impressive British North Atlantic Fleet threaded its way in single file through the dangerous North Rock channel bound for Washington,” according to author Diana Chudleigh in Hamilton Parish. The view eastwards towards St George's was captured in a painting by Major Gaspard Le Marchant Tupper in 1845, reproduced here from the Fay and Geoffrey Elliott Collection at the Bermuda Archives: it and all the views from Mount Wyndham in its days as the first Admiralty House must have been equally spectacular, though today they are someway clouded with the clutter of much modern building and those undocumented alien trees.The War ended almost two years to the day of the taking of the lease for Mount Wyndham, the peace being formulated by the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814. Rear Admiral Sir David Milne, KCB, followed Cochrane at Mount Wyndham, which also served as one of the main signal stations between Fort George in St. George's and the new Dockyard in the far west of Bermuda at Ireland Island, then but a few years old. Possibly the last senior naval officer to visit or reside at Mount Wyndham was Rear Admiral Sir Edward Griffiths (later Griffiths Colpoys), who later died at Bermuda on a voyage to England and was here buried in October 1832, his being one of the largest monuments in the Royal Naval Cemetery. His sister, Martha Griffiths, married one Thomas Abbott in 1798 and her great great grandson, Admiral Sir Peter Abbot, GBE, KCB, served in Bermuda in the mid-1970s and advised recently that he enjoyed his time and the views and people of the island, perhaps as did, we would hope, his great great uncle at Mount Wyndham.Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Executive Director of the National Museum at Dockyard. Comments may be made to director[AT]bmm.bm or 704-5480.