De Lisser, Herbert, George. The White Witch of Rosehall (Benn, 1929. London: Macmillan, 1982)."....Rose Hall great house, the most famous in Jamaica. It is a Georgian Mansion with a stone base and a plastered upper storey, high on the hillside, with a fantastic panorama over the coast. Built in the 1770s, Rose Hall was restored in the 1960s to its former splendour, with mahogany floors, interior windows and doorways, panelling and wooden ceilings. It is decorated with silk wallpaper printed with palms and birds, ornamented with chandeliers and furnished with mostly European antiques. There's a bar downstairs and a restaurant.Rose Hall is most famous for the story of its mistress Annie Palmer, who came here in 1820, and the fanciful legends of underground tunnels, bloodstains and hauntings. A renowned beauty, Annie Palmer was widely feared as a black magician, and she is also supposed to have dispatched three husbands (by poison, by stabbing and then pouring boiling oil into his ears, and by strangling) and innumerable lovers, including slaves, whom she simply killed when she was bored of them. She was 4ft 11ins high and was murdered in her bed. There is little evidence to support the legend, an amusing version of which was written up by H. G. de Lisser in his "White Witch of Rose Hall", though maybe you'll be convinced by the ghostly faces that appear in photographs taken by tourists...."ROSEHALL:This magnificent great house cost 30,000 pounds sterling to build in 1770 - an enormous sum in those days - and was considered the finest in the island. It was damaged during the 1831 slave rebellion and uninhabited thereafter, perhaps because the ghost of the White Witch of Rosehall was rumoured to be in residence. Stripped of its doors and mahogany staircase it fell into ruin. During the 1960s it was purchased by American millionaire John Rollins and restored at vast expense to its present elegance. Restoration of the great house was part of a development scheme that included the construction of the Holiday Inn and Rosehall hotels. Conducted tours are available.The story of the White Witch of Rosehall, Jamaica's most popular legend, was perpetuated by H.G. de Lisser's novel. Annie Palmer is reported to have been beautiful, lascivious and diabolical. She dabbled in voodoo, tortured her slaves, murdered her husbands and lured into her bed any man, black or white who took her fancy, boasting: If I survive I'll marry five. Annie, it is said, was eventually strangled, by a slave, during an uprising. There is no historical evidence to substantiate this tale. The facts are that the Hon. John Palmer, Custos of St James acquired Rosehall through marriage and built the great house. He was indeed the fourth husband of Rosehall's mistress, Mrs Rosa Palmer, but a memorial to her in St James Parish Church attests to her virtue and the fact that she died peacefully at age 72, predeceasing her husband. A subsequent Ann Palmer, wife of James Palmer, grandnephew of the Custos and heir to Rosehall, was also, research proves, a model wife. But the legend of the White Witch persists, losing nothing in the passage of time and encouraging attempts by various spiritualists to raise Annie's ghost. One attempt in 1978 took place before a large crowd which returned home very disappointed. Clairvoyant Bambos claimed to have conjured up a stout cafe-au-lait lady who led him to her grave behind the house where he discovered an incense burner and voodoo doll inside a termite nest.