Sunday morning on Maxwell Hill Road
ONE SUNDAY morning last month, I set out from the Oistins town on the Barbados south coast for a leisurely walk into a nearby residential area. The route was a four-kilometer (about six and a half miles) stretch along Maxwell Hill Road in Christ Church parish. It is on the ridge overlooking the coast, and parallel with the main coastal road. Guyanese living in Barbados would know it.

The trek was for exercise. But I decided to look at some of the interesting houses along the way. The area is highly built up. There are a lot of houses, and very few open spaces. As I walked, it was clear that the area was generally representative of how housing was made in the island. Some of the houses were of wood, most probably pine from Canada and the USA.   Others were ‘wall’, as the Bajans say, meaning of concrete block construction, or as in some of the older buildings, two-foot-thick coral stone blocks sawn from the inland quarries.

Since the direct hit from Hurricane Janet in 1956, when many wooden houses blew down, Bajans have increasingly been building in ‘wall’. Aside from the safety fears (fire and hurricane winds, though wood houses, if properly constructed, especially of Guyanese hardwoods, can be equally safe and long lasting), the opening of a cement plant in the island brought down costs.

There was also the cultural one, in that a ‘wall’ structure was a visible sign of upward social mobility. At the time of ‘Janet’, the majority of housing for Barbadian working people (overwhelmingly of African stock though there were pockets of poor whites, while the generally wealthier whites lived in larger coral stone buildings) were a chattel house attached to the sugar plantations.

These were invariably two-bedroom wooden houses with steep gable roofs. They were on loose stone foundations for easy removal from the plantation tenantried lands during disputes and moving to another job — hence the name, ‘chattel’. There was no piped water in many communities. Many villages had only ‘standpipes’ in central locations for communal water collecting.  All of this has, of course, changed now with the progressive reforms of successive Barbadian governments over the last fifty or so years.
I estimate that about sixty to seventy per cent of the Bajan housing stock island-wide are ‘wall’ now (though there has been a recent upsurge in wood construction, using Guyanese hardwoods), and the situation along Maxwell Hill Road were of that proportion.

Barbadian vernacular architecture — from books like that of Dr. Henry Fraser of the Barbados National Trust, which is doing such a fine job in preserving Barbados’ cultural heritage — have both African and English roots. Style influence from the former has faded. I saw one ‘slave hut’-styled house — typically of coral stone blocks with a conical (or hip) roof — on Maxwell Hill Road.  Up until the 1950s, Barbadian wooden houses had steeped gable roofs.

From experience, builders and homeowners found these types of roofs deflected the winds better than the flat roofs. Windows and doors, before the importation of metal and glass types, were also of a shuttered type. The roofs were traditionally of cedar shingles from Canada, or wallaba from then British Guiana. Now you would be hard-pressed to find a shingled roof throughout the island; they are all galvanised sheeting or clay or plastic tiles. I didn’t see any shingle ones on my trek.

As I walked, I thought about the anonymous builders and designers . The carpenters, masons and other artisans would build the houses from the traditional vernacular design. Now, designs on paper and house alignments have to be approved, and rightly so, have to be approved by Town Planning authorities.

The properties along the walk appeared to be a mixture of working-class and middle-class housing.  They appeared to be mostly owner-occupied. Like Guyana, the percentage of owner-occupied (rather than rental) accommodation in Barbados is high. Traditionally, as elsewhere, Bajans try from when they start working to save to buy their own land and build their own houses.
In 1980, 70.2 per cent of Barbados housing stock was occupied by owners and their families. Thirty years later, it is probably higher. It would be interesting to find out how much the 4.9 per cent State housing rentals in that year have increased, with the commendable coming on line from the 1960s and government-run subsidised housing estates (and lately, apartment complexes three and four stories high). These are run by the National Housing Corporation.

Barbados has a long tradition of individual house names. Some of the new ‘Heights’ and ‘Terraces’ housing districts for middle-income earners do now have numbers and street names. But many districts still have houses with personalised names. Most are made of wrought iron, and proudly and prominently placed on the front wall, which, with newer stock, is invariably of a light colour to keep the inside cool. 
Religious names such as ‘Ebenezer’ are frequent on older chattel-type houses. Names reflecting the island’s long history of British colonial rule may also be found, including the abbreviation, ‘Cot (for Cottage)’, such as in ‘Tyrol Cot’. This is the name of the wood and coral stone home of former Barbadian Premier (and now one of the country’s National Heroes), Sir Grantley Adams, in St. Michael parish.

It also depended on geographical layout. As I walked along Maxwell Hill Road, I saw several names, like ‘Hill View’ or ‘Ocean View’.

The Barbados Ministry of Agriculture is encouraging more Barbadian homeowners to have backyard gardens to try and help cut down on big food import bills. I saw only two fruit trees (a paw-paw and a cherry), though in fairness, it was difficult to see in the backyards and it may be that people are heeding the Ministry’s call. I think I did see one or two breadfruit trees at the back, peeping over the roofs. There were a lot of other trees, though it is a shame some Barbadian home owners are ill-advisedly cutting down hundreds year-old trees, like the stately and shady mahogany trees, for fear they may blow down onto the houses.
As an aside, when these trees were more plentiful, craftsmen in the past would make the unique Bajan furniture that probably sit in some of the houses, and which, every Christmas, were  sanded down and varnished.

A few moments rest and shade under the leaves of a flamboyant or mahogany as the morning heat beat down during my walk was most welcome, as I got to watch the ‘pee whittler’ or spa
rrows and blackbirds whirling and chirping above, and the view of the ocean and distant Oistins, and say good morning to Bajans coming or going to church. It was good to be alive and be thankful.

Housing stock is a part of people’s culture. People everywhere have a form of umbilical ties to them. We are so glad to get home and relax. As James Fitch wrote in his book, ‘American Building; The Historical Forces That Shaped It’, they condition our physical and mental health and wellbeing.

It is what we made. Out of our own heads. We must cherish the achievements of our buildings, both residential and commercial. They protect us from the often cruel natural elements like rain and stormy weather. They protect our machinery and tools and services that keep the economy going. They provide comfort and relaxation.

Barbados, like Guyana, has done well with providing housing for its people, both in the government and private sector fields.  I was so glad for the little walk a couple Sundays ago, to get to get to know even more about the rich cultural tradition of Bajan homebuilding and their material wellbeing and advances.

(NORMAN FARIA <nfaria@caribsurf.com> IS GUYANA’S HONORARY CONSUL IN BARBADOS)