General Edward Allenby’s entrance into Jerusalem on December 11, 1917 and the de facto establishment of a new military government was a rupture in the long history of the city. After over four hundred years of Ottoman rule, the city had a new foreign imperial power and new way of governing the Status Quo. The “Status Quo” of the Christian Holy Places in Jerusalem and, more generally, the Holy Land, stems from treaties and customary practices since Mamluk rule over the region (1250-1517). It denotes the rights of the various Christian sects to worship, practice, control, and access shared Christian holy places, most importantly the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. For the British, the management of the Status Quo policy became a means for legitimizing British rule of the region. By the 1920s, international prestige relied on a colonizer’s ability to adhere to the rights of the inhabitants and not ignore their previous laws. For the British, prestige relied on their ability to act as trustees who administered the local populations by local laws and customs. Through an analysis of archival documents of the Public Works Department (PWD), I argue that the PWD became an instrument to implement a new British-defined policy that justified their rule over Palestine through management of the Church. The Church is one of the holiest sites in Christianity and has had traditions of pilgrimage as early as its establishment. Christians believe that the sites of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, tomb, and resurrection are all within the church. As this belief is one of the only ones shared across all Christian sects, the church has been a place of constant contention and feuds, as each sect has attempteds to have a stronger foothold in the church. Following Ottoman tradition, only six sects have been allowed to officially worship within the church. The Status Quo policy therefore denotes that none of the sects lose any possession rights when there are changes to the common areas. Through the installation of a fire life safety system, a water system, and some minor repairs, starting in the 1930s, the Mandate government inserted themselves into a symbolically charged religious domain. This furthermore had long term consequences on understandings of the Status Quo of Jerusalem and the creation of the Old City into a living museum.