Godfrey's Point/Widdrington (#29 on the bottom of the map, south of Olive Hill).
The Godfrey family and their ancestors had some connection with this from 1660 till 1835, when a mortgage was held on it by our John Dunscomb, who owned it until he died in 1848. It then passed out of our family as part of the settlement of John Dunscomb's estate. John's maternal grandfather was Peter Godfrey. That name shows in the ownership chain, and I assume they are one and the same. The current house was built in 1910 and has recently been remodeled to acclaim.
From the book "Pembroke" part of the Bermuda's Architectural History Series published by the Bermuda National Trust in 2017:
The Godfrey ownership of the point now occupied by Widdrington at 6 Old Slip Lane lasted until the death of Squire Godfrey in 1831. The family must have been responsible for the small buildings near the shoreline of Pitts Bay which appear so charming in many old photographs taken from across the bay. These buildings were already ruined by the time of the earliest photographs so it is not possible to know how large they originally were, and layer owners used them as a garden folly and probably made changes. In 2012 they were added to and converted to a gym and pool house.
Nothing is known either about a substantial two-story house which shows on the 1898 Savage map as well as in the background of pre-1910 photographs taken across Pitts Bay. It was to the west of the site of the present house but there are no known photographs that give clues as to its identity. However when a swimming pool was constructed at Widdrington in 2012 large amounts of building materials were found which were probably left after the demolition of the mystery house.
Squire Godfrey bought the point property from a half-nephew, Joseph Edward Albouy Godfrey, in 1816 but by the time he died in 1831 he had mortgaged it to John Dunscomb of Newfoundland and Olive Hill. Dunscomb himself died in some financial difficulty and the property was sold to Richard Wood by the Provost Marshal in 1848. Richard Wood was already a large property owner and lived elsewhere so it is probably during this period of disinterested ownership that the Godfrey buildings deteriorated. Wood's grandson Richard Marmaduke Wood, who lived in England, sold the point to Harley Trott in 1890. Trott already owned Cardiff across the bay to the east and was one of those developing the Princess Hotel. With Trott's 1897 death, Godfrey's Point passed into the ownership of his son, the medical doctor Dudley Trott.
The 1816 deeds of the property refer to it as Godfrey's Point, formerly Stammers' Point, and the Godfrey name persisted up to at least 1986 in deeds. It has also been referred to as Cockle Point.
The present Widdrington was built in 1910 by Dr. Dudley Trott. He had lived at The Ridgeway, now the site of the Berkeley Institute, but moved to the new house. According to family tradition, Trott built it for his English wife, Florence Lee, but she disliked the area due to the considerable noise of coaling vessels unloading their cargo just across the bay, so they moved back to The Ridgeway. Eventually their daughter Doris, well-known Bermuda suffragette, and her husband, mayor of Hamilton Harry St. George Butterfield, made it their house and lived there throughout their married lives.
The architect of the house is believed to have been John H. Besarick, the Boston architect who paid many visits to Bermuda during that period. Its fine proportions remain largely unchanged in 2015, with a large double-columned verandah, deeply recessed eaves and a ripple dormer window at the south of the house peering out from the roof. The large plate glass windows create a sense of spaciousness and wealth and the unusual use of columns on the upper corners creates space for extra windows.
Widdrington, 6 Old Slip Lane.
Owner Dates
Richard Hunt (agent Philip Lea) ?-1660
John Squire (by purchase) 1660-1681
Richard Stamers (by purchase) 1681-bef. 1722
Tabitha Ingham (daughter of Richard Stamers) bef 1722-bef 1727
William Godfrey (grandson of Richard Stamers) bef 1727-ca. 1732
Peter Godfrey (son of William Godfrey) ca. 1732-?
Joseph Edward Albouy Godfrey (grandson of
Peter Godfrey) ?-1816
Squire Godfrey (by purchase, half uncle of
Joseph Edward Albouy Godfrey) 1816-1831
Executors of Squire Godfrey 1831-1835
John Dunscomb (by mortgage) 1835-1848
Richard Wood (by purchase) 1848
Children of Richard Wood 1848-1861
Thomas Pattison Wood (son of Richard Wood) 1861-1874
Richard Francis Marmaduke Wood (son of Thomas
P. Wood) 1874-1890
Harley Trott (by purchase) 1890-1897
Dudley Cox Trott (son of Harley Trott) 1897-1925
Current house built 1910
Doris Lee Butterfield (daughter of Dudley Cox) 1925-1960
White Spruce Investments 1986-2007
James John O'Shea (by purchase) 2007-