Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents and her­itage ad­vo­cates in Palmiste are step­ping up ef­forts to pre­serve the Cedar Grove chim­ney, one of south Trinidad’s last sug­ar es­tate relics, as they or­gan­ise a pe­ti­tion urg­ing au­thor­i­ties to save the 200-year-old struc­ture.

The Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety and Palmiste Res­i­dents’ As­so­ci­a­tion are call­ing for the area to be of­fi­cial­ly de­clared a her­itage site and for the chim­ney, which had been con­cealed in an un­de­vel­oped part of Palmiste 1975 Ltd, to be re­stored.

Speak­ing at the site yes­ter­day, Ter­rence Hon­ore, who heads both groups, ex­plained that the 60-foot brick chim­ney dates back more than two cen­turies to the colo­nial in­dus­tri­al era. Lo­cat­ed be­tween Blocks 4, 5, 7 and 8, the site has no des­ig­nat­ed own­er on the cadas­tral, rais­ing con­cerns about en­croach­ment now that the sur­round­ing bush­es have been cleared.

“Rem­nants of it is still here – the fac­to­ry, the chim­ney is still here, the stack­ers and the struc­ture main­ly bro­ken down now, but the en­clo­sure where the ovens were, where the sug­ar cane would have boiled in cop­pers and of course, we would have the sug­ar and mo­lasses. So es­sen­tial­ly, where we are is a her­itage site and should be pre­served,” Hon­ore said.

He es­ti­mat­ed that restora­tion could cost around $250,000 and not­ed that, de­spite grow­ing pub­lic sup­port, there has been no of­fi­cial re­sponse from the Na­tion­al Trust or the Min­istry of Tourism.

“Young peo­ple should ap­pre­ci­ate the his­to­ry. They should learn of this, vis­it this site, and I am trust­ing that the au­thor­i­ties, the Na­tion­al Trust, Na­tion­al Tourism and oth­er peo­ple would put this place to­geth­er for us. Pre­serve it. Cre­ate an in­ter­pre­ta­tion cen­tre, maybe build a mu­se­um. Have a place for kids to come and to recre­ate and for fam­i­ly to be in­volved in pre­serv­ing this part of his­to­ry and lega­cy of South,” he added.

Hon­ore said sig­na­tures are be­ing col­lect­ed for a pe­ti­tion to sub­mit to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties.

He has al­ready con­tact­ed the Min­istry of Tourism and pre­vi­ous­ly reached out to the Na­tion­al Trust and is await­ing of­fi­cial re­spons­es.

His­to­ri­an Alex­ia St Bernard, al­so with the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety, high­light­ed the site’s unique arte­facts and colo­nial-era rem­nants.

“It is quite im­por­tant to us be­cause it shows us a rem­nant of our past. It’s a ves­tige of our colo­nial his­to­ry, so it’s gone through African slav­ery. It’s gone through in­den­tured labour­ship and even be­yond that,” she said.

For Bal Sinanan and his cousins, Maria Sinanan-Ram­paul and Don­na Sinanan-Gopaul, who grew up on the es­tate, vis­it­ing the chim­ney brought nos­tal­gia.

Sinanan-Ram­paul re­called that she was born on the es­tate, while her sis­ter Sinanan-Gopaul said it was the first time she had re­turned to the site since the 1970s.

They called for the chim­ney, which is slight­ly tilt­ed, to be re­stored and the area trans­formed in­to a tourist at­trac­tion.