LOCATED on the main road between Hopewell and Sandy Bay in Hanover is the Tryall Great House.

This estate has gone from being a sugar plantation, then a coconut plantation to the now popular Tryall Club Guest House.

This idea of the great house to be used as a guest house started from as early as the 1930s as a subsidiary to the failing coconut trade of Eugene Browne.

Browne’s coconut trade was at one point producing as great as one million coconuts a year, but by the mid 1930s the coconut market dropped and the family needed a way to make ends meet.

Years later, the club was purchased by Pollard Simons, who managed it until his death in 1975. After his death, homeowners of the club bought the property. There is now currently over 60 proprietary members, the bulk of which are from the United States.

It is not just the homey feel and look of the great house that excite the foreign visitors and keep them coming, but the hidden treasures that can be found at the property as well.

The main attraction is the 200-year-old water wheel. The gigantic Tryall water wheel is currently the only functioning water wheel to be found in Jamaica. It was originally used to power the crushing process of the sugar cane. It was however destroyed during the slave revolt in 1831, but thankfully rebuilt in the 1950s.

Another great feature of the property is the phenomenal 18-hole golf course. The course gives golfers the chance to be taken away by the serene and divine view of the Caribbean Sea. Many may not know, but this course hosted the renowned Johnie Walker World Championship until 1996.