Fort Catherine. An old work commanding the turning point of the Narrows Channel where the navigation is most intricate and difficult. A project for mounting six guns on Moncrieff carriages has been approved by the Defence Committee. Owing, however, to the limited interior space of the old work, it has been found impracticable to mount more than three guns on the Moncrieff principle in such a manner as to obtain from them the most useful effect. It is therefore recommended that the revised armament should consist of three guns so mounted, supplemented by two in casemates firing on the channel adjoining the turning point.

¿ Wm. F. Drummond Jervois, Commissioner of Royal Engineers, "Bermuda: Report on Defences, 1869"

In the far northeast where the morning sun first bathes Bermuda, the New Year began with a crawl as large digging machines inched along St. Catherine's Beach with their catch of beached whales, all 18 tons of the same in iron.

For nigh on two-thirds of a century, three great Rifled Muzzle Loaders had lain on the rocks and beach below Fort St. Catherine, a testament to neglect of Bermuda's military heritage and of historic guns in particular.

Let us set the general scene at the east end before proceeding to the details of the particular modern act of a few weeks ago. After the Second World War, the Bermuda Government inherited, for a small purchase price, several hundred acres of British military lands, from St. George's in the east to the Dockyard in the west.

Most people of the day had not the foggiest idea about the treatment of historic monuments on those properties and a trail of devastation began in the mid-1950s and continued almost into the 1990s. In the dockyard, for example, at least half of the buildings handed over in good condition by the British Government were neglected, abused and ultimately destroyed.

With the advent of airline tourism in the 1950s, the Government appreciated that the discerning visitor was most interested in seeing the heritage of places, a major point still lost on the politicians in many jurisdictions. The Trade Development Board, the forerunner of the Department of Tourism, decided to restore a couple of the historic fortifications as "attractions", not necessarily as heritage monuments in their own right.

Fort St. Catherine, the so-called (possibly only at the time of restoration) Gate's Fort and Scaur Hill Fort in Somerset were designated for such enhancement for the tourism trade.

At Fort St. Catherine, the restoration emphasis was not enough to prevent the eventual "murder" of the unique "parados" of the 1840s in the centre of the fort, to allow for the temporary production of Macbeth of one of Shakespeare's plays, starring Charlton Heston of The Ten Commandments movie fame. That type of heritage destruction for temporary events has occurred in other places, the creation of arenas, ski sloops and "villages" for the Olympics is but a large example of such a shortsighted policy.

The Trade Development Board did the best job it could, given the tenor of the times, but for the next 25 years, most of the other historic fortifications languished in various states of decay. In 2002, the then Premier of Bermuda, now Dame Jennifer Smith, and the Cabinet commissioned a "conditions report" on the state of the nation's military monuments. From that time a new era began, which relates to the story in this column. When Fort St. Catherine was under restoration in the 1950s, it had no guns to augment its great ramparts and attractions: it was a lion's mouth without teeth. That was due to the fact that its four large Rifled Breech Loaders had been thrown out of the fort onto the rocks and the beach, possible during the military occupation of the site in the Second World War.

Instead of taking the discarded guns from the beach, the Government hired a contractor to remove all the similar guns from nearby Fort Albert, no mean task as each weighed in at 18 tons. It was a pity that all the guns were taken, as it denuded Fort Albert and lessened its effectiveness as a heritage site and a tourism asset later on.

As a result, the only RMLs left in situ, or in their original emplacements, in the whole of Bermuda are the two 11-inch, 25-ton guns at Fort George, lately restored by the Parks Department under Director Lisa Johnston and Parks Planner Andrew Pettit.

After the Conditions Report was published, new life emerged at some of the forts through the efforts of the Parks Department and with the enthusiastic support of the advisory National Parks Commission. As part of the new emphasis on the heritage of the sites, Fort St. Catherine is being extensively restored and the Parks Planner made plans to go fishing on the beach, mixing some pleasure with work.

His tournament-winning companions were men from the Parks Department and the Ministry of Works and Engineering. According to Mr. Pettit, three "18 tonners" were caught and dragged to the roadside near St. Catherine's Beach, the latter the landing spot of the bedraggled survivors of the wreck of the Sea Venture in 1609.

Stated Mr. Pettit: "The catches were made due to the great enthusiasm of my team and the machine operators from Works and Engineering and with the great support of Permanent Secretary Robert Horton and the supervising Structural Engineering Technician, Tammy Harmer."

These iron whales were worth rescuing as they are extremely rare, although Bermuda has perhaps the largest collection of British Rifled Muzzle Loaders anywhere in the world. There are 41 such guns on the island, ranging in size from the six-pounder of half a ton, to several monsters at Fort Cunningham with an individual deadweight of 25 tons. Of the latter 12.5-inch calibre RMLs, only ten are known to have survived worldwide.

As historic artillery specialist A. Collin (Guns) Carpenter once wrote after a visit to inventory the Bermuda guns, "this small chain of islands turned out to have one of the most comprehensive collections of period cannon I had ever come across". Once rotting on the rocks at Fort St. Catherine, three of that impressive heritage collection have now been rescued for posterity.

* * *

Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. This article represents his opinions and not necessarily those of persons associated with the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm or by telephone to 799-5480.