Affectionately known to those who occupied it as 'The Hill', the Colonial Secretariat housed the administrative headquarters of the colony from the time its earliest predecessor was established here in 1847. It was a stolid building whose heavy-handed neoclassicism was intended to project the authority of the colonial power and give an impression of functionality rather than any sense of architectural elegance. Badly decayed as a result of tropical humidity, infested with white ants and timber rot, this complex built in the 1930s was in turn replaced by the present eight-storey Colonial Secretariat in 1957.