The city of St. John quietly renamed a building nestled on the rocky shores of Quidi Vidi before next month’s visit by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.
The former Quidi Vidi Village, a two-story wooden structure in the picturesque fishing community, will welcome Prince Charles and Camilla during their city tour on May 17.
By the time they arrive, all hints of his previous name – and his associations with slavery and colonialism – will be erased.
“There was a lot of confusion about the name because it doesn’t really relate to what’s going on in the building,” Mayor Danny Breen said Wednesday.
The city’s former plantation is now called Quidi Vidi Village Artisan Studios, a slope to its tenants: a small number of artisans and traders run through the Anna Templeton Center. This is where Charles and Camilla will learn about hanging carpets during their visit.
However, the new name has not been officially announced.
The old name of Plantation has been removed from the front of the building as the city prepares to rebrand the plant before the royal visit. (Malone Mullin / CBC)
Breen says the city has already planned to change the name of the building, but the royal visit hastened the process. The building’s social media accounts were deleted, and a new domain name was purchased last week to reflect the name change.
The “plantation” part of the building’s plaque has also been removed.
The visit comes amid turbulence in the former colonies
Charles and Camilla tour St. John as part of a three-day anniversary celebrating the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s throne.
The visit comes just months after Barbados overthrew the British monarch as head of state and weeks after the Jamaican prime minister told visiting royalty that the country intends to become a republic. This visit in March was marked by protests and demands for reparations for slavery from the royal family.
Breen says no royal scout has been involved in pushing the city to rebrand the Quidditch Plantation, a name that refers to the building’s history as a fish plant, according to a spokeswoman for the Anna Templeton Center.
Breen cited ongoing talks in recent years to choose a name that better reflects current use of the building, but said he suspected city officials had also considered the colonial implications of the term when discussing how to rebrand.
“I think we all recognize and appreciate the names of certain facilities as we look at our colonial history, and this is one of them,” he said.
“I think that name really reflects what we’re showing here.”
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