Ghana (former Gold Coast) became independent and joined the Commonwealth in 1957.

Residential accommodation

A site of about 3½ acres on which to build a residence was taken on a 75-year lease from 1956 (amended by new legislation in 1992 to 50 years from 1969) on Plots 14a and 15a, Cantonments Circle. The residence, designed in-house by architects of the Ministry of Public Building and Works, was completed in 1959 at a cost of about £73,000, including furnishings. A swimming pool was built in the garden in 1980. The flat roof was replaced by a pitched roof during a major refurbishment in the 1990s.

Staff accommodation was built on long-leased land as follows (some since renumbered/renamed): a house for the deputy high commissioner, called Devonshire House, at 67 Fourth Circular Road, completed in 1962; two houses at 17 and 19 Fifth Avenue Extension; five houses at 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 Mankata Avenue (formerly, North Drake Avenue) completed 1966 for £70,000; 12 flats (in two blocks of 9 and 3) in a compound with club, court and pool at 31 Osu Avenue Extension, and a house on Lot 25 at 1 Osu Link/Gamel Abdul Nasser Avenue

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Approach to the residence, 1964.

Offices

Offices for the High Commission were leased for 21 years from 1959 on two floors of the Barclays Bank Building, on High Street. By the early 1980s, these had become too run-down, and the consular and immigration offices were out-housed in two converted houses on the Tema Ring road, four miles awy. A 50-year ground lease, with an option to renew for a similar period, was therefore taken in 1984 on Plots 25 and 27 Gamel Abdul Nasser Avenue, together comprising about 3½ acres. A new building to accommodate all the offices, designed by John Watts, an in-house PSA and later FCO architect, was completed here by Taylor Woodrow International in 1986. An extension to the visa section was completed in 1990. [? and another annex across the road.]