At Bermuda's emancipation in 1834, almost half the black population of St.

George's was already free, and many had owned property in St. George's since the 1790s.

Also, there is no firm evidence to support the long-held theory that there was a natural pond or stream off King's Square -- let alone a bridge that gave its name to ancient Bridge House in St. George's.

These are just a couple of the fascinating discoveries made by the National Trust during its ongoing and exhaustive architectural heritage survey of Bermuda's parishes.

The painstaking task of recording the Island's historical buildings, parish by parish, and co-ordinated by Margaret Lloyd, has already resulted in the publication of the Trust's first book on the parish of Devonshire.

Now, says Mrs. Lloyd, the research for the next book, on Sandys Parish, has been completed and that on St. George's has reached the half-way mark.

"Thanks to very generous sponsorship by Bacardi International, we have been able to embark on these two parishes together and, most important, we were able to bring Michael Jarvis back to Bermuda to help us with this historical research.'' This latest, updated and extremely detailed history of St. George's, revealed through a combination of historical research and archeology, is causing ripples of excitement throughout the Island's conservation camp. As Dace Ground, the Trust's director for development points out, "Everyone knows that St. George's is the oldest, continually inhabited English settlement in the New World. I believe that, if ever there was a case for St. George's to be adopted as a World Heritage Site, the publication of this book should do it!'' Mr. Jarvis, presently completing his PhD in History at the College of William and Mary, Virginia, with a dissertation on the history of Bermuda, is doubly qualified to undertake the daunting task of `discovering' the town's past, as he also has a degree in archeology.

"In fact,'' he says, "it was archeology that first brought me here, as I was here on a `dig' when they found the skeleton in the garden of Stewart Hall''.

He would probably be the first to admit that he has been hooked on St.

George's ever since.

Now, he and the National Trust are hoping that the rest of Bermuda will become similarly inspired. They are making a special appeal to anyone who owns a St.

George's town property to contact Mr. Jarvis at the National Trust, so that he can study the deeds.

"This project began as a series on architecture to help people appreciate what we have. Of course, one of the problems is that the history behind each building is so interesting that we tend to get bogged down,'' says Mrs. Lloyd.

"We think,'' adds Mr. Jarvis, "that the best way to save a property is to tell people all about the property they own. The more they know, the more human history becomes and better care will be taken of these historical buildings.'' Noting that they were surprised by the high number of property-owning blacks in St. George's during the late 1700s, Mrs. Lloyd explains that, even from the very beginnings of colonisation, the main town would became a craft centre, with a greater range of stores and services. "That is certainly true of St.

George's. We had people like clockmakers, jewellers, even periwig makers. So if you had been a slave, say, in 1790, in Devonshire and you were freed, there would be few opportunities if you stayed in what was a very rural parish. You would make your way to St. George's, as it was an important and busy port, with lots of ships coming in to provide work. Some of the free blacks also came here from the West Indies and a lot of them settled in St. George's. So there is a very important black heritage in St. George's which goes back a long time before emancipation.'' Surrounded by seemingly hundreds of maps and historical data on buildings that have been part of the unique Bermuda scene since the 1600s, Mr. Jarvis explains that the research on St. George's is quite different -- and far more complicated -- than for any other parish.

"Apart from Hamilton, this is the most concentrated urban area and, because it was Bermuda's original capital, it has far more historical buildings than anywhere else,'' he explains. "The other parishes have about 80 or so buildings that would be included in each book, but spread out over a comparatively large area. In St. George's, we have about 65 buildings, all cheek by jowl -- and that's without the outlying areas of St. David's and Tucker's Town.'' Until they were confronted with the mammoth task of mapping out the old town, he says that Mrs. Lloyd had selected houses for inclusion based on old surveys and the Savage maps, carefully researching each building, and going back in time, one by one.

"We couldn't use that approach in St. George's,'' laughs Mr. Jarvis. "The town was virtually completed between about 1693 and 1720. Now, before 1693, a lot of people were living there but were not the technical owners because the whole town was owned by the original shareholders in London.'' A new light on old Bermuda "It was only when the Somers Company was abolished that the governors began granting title to the land on which people were living and had built houses.

So, if you take Bridge House, for example, we know someone was living there by 1658 but no title was granted until the 1700s, so these grants are like a puzzle -- once you put them all together, you can find out who was living there at a certain date.'' Starting with the archival maps, the team of researchers have spent endless hours poring over deeds, wills, Chancery Court records, parish assessments and early newspapers to produce this unique social history of Bermuda. The deeds are especially important, they explain, as each one lists the four surrounding neighbours, so that reveals who the occupiers were, as well as the owners.

"If it happened in St. George's, we should know about it,'' says Mr. Jarvis.

"Once we have the layout of the town, through the deeds, it's like a walk through time, so, in theory, you could go to any year since 1700 and know what has owned it and whether it is the original house. One thing coming out of our research is that, unfortunately. a great many 17th and 18th century houses were replaced or knocked down by the 19th century, but at least we have found their architectural sites.'' On the subject of the bridge in King's Square, he explains, "The historian Henry Wilkinson wrote about a bridge over a stream at Bridge House, but I now believe this is just a theory that has `stuck' ever since. I can tell you, that from going through all these deeds, I have never come across a single reference to a stream or the pond (in what is now Somers Garden). It may have been filled in by 1690, but I believe Wilkinson failed to connect to the fact that it was not a natural pond. Governor Daniel Tucker had the pond dug in 1617 for cattle to drink from. It would be wonderful if we could test all this in an archeological dig,'' he adds wistfully.

Another fact that has emerged is the extent to which the shoreline of St.

George's has changed since settlement. Mr. Jarvis has discovered that at around 1800 the water line reached the area that is now known as Tiger's Bay and Penno's Wharf. "Water Street really was a water street then, as there were no buildings on the `water' side of the road -- only the harbour, so there was a lot of land reclamation going on.'' Employing what he refers to as "the new social history approach'' of American colonial scholarship, Michael Jarvis emphasises that archeology and research must always work hand in hand. "This enables us to get the big, overall picture. An archeologist can go and dig and discover wonderful things, but unless he knows who put the houses there in the ground, they are only dealing with generalities. Similarly, an historian may theorise and then archeological evidence will tell quite a different story. It's this bringing together of research that brings it all alive and teaches us about the way people lived.'' Mrs. Lloyd says that the research on Sandys has revealed the extent to which families there were inter-linked. "Because of that, we have done a lot of family trees. We also found that once Hamilton was established as the capital, a lot of white people moved from Somerset to Hamilton, Pembroke or Paget, so we find, over and over again, that people born in Somerset, died elsewhere, so there was quite an exodus -- Teddy Tucker is still there, of course! Also, the building of Dockyard meant that Bermudians were marrying people from Britain and the West Indies who came to work there. In the book, we plan to have a chapter on Dockyard.'' One interesting fact revealed in the Sandys survey is that the little Watch House, which has a sign on it stating that it dates from 1664, was actually not erected until 1815.

Mrs. Ground says she believes that the fate of Springfield, which has been the subject of extensive research and an archeological dig, and acknowledged as the National Trust's `jewel' of Somerset, will be one of the first priorities for recently elected President, Hugh Davidson.

Assisting in the massive, two-pronged project are a team of "dedicated'' volunteers. "Michelle Collier is doing her Masters in architecture and working on research for the old Globe Hotel, for example. I have a lot of confidence in her ability,'' says Mr. Jarvis, "and she is also doing for St.

David's what I am doing for St. George's. We also have Jennifer Lapsley who is going into Senior Year at Saltus and is very enthusiastic, and there's Cherie Nevill-Gliddon and Jackie Smith working on deeds, with Kathleen Bell and Dolores Kiernan working on wills. So we are very grateful for their help. They are working so hard stripping out all the records and finding out all about Bermuda's properties and their citizens.''