Courtesy the Barbados National Trust from their Euchard Fitzpatrick Collection
Historic Bridgetown
The Careenage, so named because schooners would be tied up to be careened - have their hulls scraped clear of barnacles and clinging weeds
St. Michael and All Saints Cathedral
Ducking pond for quarrelsome wives
Located next to the old school is the Anglican Cathedral of St. Michael and All Saint’s which was badly damaged in the 1780 hurricane and largely rebuilt at that time. It has a very good organ, an interesting barrel vaulted ceiling and many funerary monuments and plaques to the island’s powerful elite, dating back some three centuries. Leaving the church, we cross the road and enter Amen’s Alley. This narrow road with its old structures with balconies gives us a good impression of what much of Bridgetown looked like in the eighteenth centuries. We exit at Palmetto Square, whose place name reminds us of the extensive swamp that existed in this area of town, filled in during the mid eighteenth century. There is a good view of the Public Buildings from the north side and all about, the hustle and bustle of an open air market. We then follow High Street to its juncture with Broad Street and cross to the recently renamed National Heroes Square, formerly Trafalgar Square, with its Westmacott sculpted statue of the hero of Trafalgar, Lord Horatio Nelson, erected in 1813 by Barbadians grateful to be saved from the threat of French invasion. Now, with the passage of time, some Barbadians see the statue as a colonial imposition, though the reality of the statue is that it came from internal decisions taken by the citizenry rather than by imperial fiat.
In the seventeenth century, this area was known as Eggington’s Green. It was an open spot of land owned by Jeremiah Eggington, which was used by the townspeople. The stocks were located here and there was a pond with a ducking stool, where scolds and quarrelsome women were punished by strapping them into the stool and submerging them in the water. It is here, following a major fire, that the so called New Burnt District was acquired by the government of the day in order to construct the Parliament or Public buildings. Built largely in neoGothic style, both wings were completed by 1874. The East wing included a clock tower, but given the swampy nature of the soil, the tower under the weight of its clock and peal of bells, started to sink and had to be dismantled. The clock was later installed in the West wing and there it stands today.
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Ins & Outs of Barbados
Cholera epidemic of 1854 As we walk across the “Swing Bridge”, now replaced by one which lifts, we pause to look back at National Heroes Square with its debated statue of Horatio Nelson and the Public Buildings in the background, arguably one of the finest views of a public space in the Caribbean. To our left is the Inner Basin of