FROM the western veranda of the Dockyard Parsonage where I once lived on Ireland Island, one could occasionally see the remains of buildings on the adjacent Maria Hill through a casuarina forest. The structures were erected in the 1880s as the 'Single Mechanics Quarters', but saw their last years as a habitation for pigs, the remnants of whose fodder formed an archaeological blanket about the buildings.

It would have come perhaps as a surprise to local hoteliers to have seen the amount of their crockery and silverware that found its way into the pig swill, rather than their dishwashers! The Quarters were built on the flattened hilltop, so formed by its quarrying for soft stone in the 1850s.

Apparently the name 'Maria' is a corruption of 'Neriah', being the forename of one Mr. Hill, who owned the land thereabouts prior to its acquisition by the Royal Navy.

Be that as it may, it was upon that sugar-loaf hill that the first fort of the Ireland Island was to be found. An old survey of the area indicates that 'Maria Hill Fort' was standing there as late as 1828, 19 years after the founding of the Dockyard on the shores of Grassy Bay in 1809. This small redoubt predates the establishment of the Dockyard and thus lays claim to being its first, if utterly obsolete, fort.

Maria Hill Fort is not to be counted among the great works of the Royal Engineers, who left such an enormous legacy of their trades at Bermuda, but was constructed by the citizens of the west end of Bermuda.

As far as we can tell, nothing survives of the fort, which must have enjoyed one of the best panoramic views in the western parishes.

The survey of 1828 shows the fort as a small redoubt in the shape of a diamond, with a commanding position in the middle of Ireland Island South.

This image also appears in an earlier map of Ireland Island signed in 1818 by Edward Holl, Chief Architect to the Royal Navy and the designer of Commissioner's House with the engineer John Rennie. The last survey of fortifications by the local government was recorded in 1798 and the following information was given about Maria Hill Fort.

The Fort on the high Hill of Ireland commanded by Captain John V. Seymour is of a square form, sunk in the rock, some part of the platform, which is stone, is found to be soft and therefore will require to be laid with wood; here are nine twelve-pounder cannon, as good as new, unmounted, and new carriages. This Hill is well situated to annoy an enemy passing round Ireland and should be capable of defending the passage into the Great Sound.

A report by a British officer that same year to 'The Most Noble Marquis Cornwallis, Master General of His Majesty's Ordnance' suggests some disparity in the number and size of its guns.

A considerable enclosed Battery mounting eight eighteen-pounders has been built upon the summit of a Hill in the Island of Ireland. This Redoubt is in good Repair & commands well the Entrance into the sound and anchorage called Grassy Bay, where large Ships may ride out the severe Gales with safety.

Simon Fraser, the Commissary of Artillery, based in St. George's, compiled the next report in 1806. He noted that Captain Henry Harvey commanded the fort, but all the guns were unserviceable.>

The Guns on this Work were raised in the Summer of 1795, from the wreck of the Lord Amhurst, Ordnance Transport, lost here in February 1777 returning from Jamaica, and all attempts to clear their Cylinders have proved unsuccessful, they are so much corroded and full of barnacles, there is no getting a Shot or Cartridge of the proper Calibre home.B>FRASER, a clever Scot who made a fortune creating Ordnance Island and then selling it to the British Government, went on to say that "the only Platform is the Rock, rather soft for that purpose . . . during the Alarm in June 1804, Eighteen Rounds of Ammunition supplied for each piece of Ordnance". He then put in a plug for a Dockyard near Maria Hill.In the neighbourhood of this Island is Grassy Bay, supposed to be the best Calculated for a Naval Station of any Place about Bermuda. It has a fine bold Shore, where Ships of the largest size could be hove down. Previous to anything being done, the Island must be purchased, which could be no great expense. It is inhabited at present by a few families, who can hardly be said to be human, Extremely poor, but still not attended with the same degree of misery as those suffer in similar situations who live in Colder Climates.

Several years later, Capt. Thomas Cunningham, after whom the eastern fort of the appellation is named, commented after leaving Maria Hill Fort, that "the whole of the colonial works are in very tolerable condition, but there are no roads to any of them, and many it was difficult to discover, so completely were they enveloped by the Trees and Bushes, thro' which there was not even a path".

Maria Hill Fort was demolished in the 1850s, as the hill was partly quarried away to supply the Dockyard with soft Bermuda stone, a quality of the rock indicated in several of the military reports. There is no evidence that that area of Ireland Island contained any of the hard limestone so prevalent in the dockyard proper, as has sometimes been suggested.

All of the "hardly be said to be human" Bermudians were removed from the area, as they were forced to sell their lands, poor as they and the soil might have been, to the government for the occupation of the Royal Naval Dockyard. As with other commandeered lands throughout Bermuda, such as parts of Devonshire, Tucker's Town and St. George's, others, as well as the local government, have reaped great benefits today for that real estate acquired years ago "in the name of national interest".

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Pictures show:

1: Maria Hill and the Dockyard in an artist's print of 1848.

2: A French version of the 1848 London Illustrated News image.

3: Maria Hill Fort located in a survey of 1828.

4: Single Mechanics Quarters at Maria Hill in the 1940s.

5: Football at Maria Hill with remnants of quarryinDr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. The views expressed here are his opinion, not necessarily those of the trustees or staff of the Museum. Comments can be sent to drhas@logim, to PO Box MA 133, Sandys MABX, or by telephone at 799-5480.