A key project that the JOS has undertaken to mark its 90th Anniversary is the restoration of the Hope Gardens Orchid House and its immediate surrounding areas. The project has the support of the Nature Preservation Foundation of Jamaica (NPFJ) who manages the gardens, and The JOS is working with the Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of Technology to obtain technical, architectural and planning services. Hope Gardens, or the Royal Botanical Gardens, Hope, were formerly part of Major Richard Hope’s Estate. As one of the English officers who helped capture Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655, Hope was granted a huge parcel of land as a reward. At one time Hope Estate extended from the sea to the hills in Newcastle. In the 17th and 18th centuries Hope was a sugar estate, one of the first where water (from the Hope River) was used to turn estate mills. The Hope Aqueduct (which can still be seen at Hope Gardens, Mona Heights and Mona Road) was built for that purpose. In 1766 Richard Elletson Hope arranged for Kingston to be supplied with water from his estate, but after his death, his wife remarried a British Duke and cancelled the water concession. Consequently, Kingston lost its water supply. In the 1840s the Duke’s son sold the city of Kingston 234 acres of the estate bordering the Hope River. Kingston’s water was eventually drawn from this land as part of a publicly owned system. The two hundred (200) acres of Hope Estate land that eventually became Hope Gardens (and one of Jamaica’s few public parks) in the late 1870s – early 1880s included a Palm Avenue where sago palms are among the oldest living trees, a cacti garden, a bougainvillea walk, a maze, a forest, and lily pond. Other attractions included a zoo, a lake, a fountain, military band concerts and even a poet’s corner. The original Orchid House was constructed in 19xx in the Parade area of downtown Kingston. However, following the 1907 fire and earthquake that devastated downtown Kingston, the Orchid House was rebuilt on the Hope Gardens site and was opened to the public in 19xx The goal of the JOS which is aligned with the goal of the NPFJ is to restore the Orchid House and its immediate environs and create a premier attraction within the Hope Gardens which will primarily showcase lowland orchids and orchids that are indigenous to Jamaica and the Americas