The Somerset people who have shared the amazing tourist based economic boom of the 20th century can thus be considered as almost different people from the rest of the Island, combining relatively recent United Kingdom or West Indian roots that entail quite a different set of traditions and attitudes from those traditions and outlooks shared by more deeply rooted Bermudians. The recent frivolous notion that ordinary Bermudians from the lower parishes needed to show a passport at Somerset Bridge had more than a grain of truth; many of the people of Somerset really are more than a little different in heritage and outlook from the rest of Bermuda. Those differences can readily be observed in Somerset's built heritage as well.

¿ Bermuda's Architectural Heritage: Sandys, Bermuda National Trust, 1999

THERE you have it from no less an authority than the Bermuda National Trust: Somerset is different from the rest of Bermuda, though their writers did not go far enough and declare it to be "God's Country", as some from that western island do.

Now those of you who have the misfortune of living in the "Lower Parishes" need not think that we of "Somer's Seat" look down on you, for we do not, as the highest point of land is actually at Town Hill, above Flatts in Smith's Parish.

Rather the expression comes from a climatic condition, in that the prevailing wind at Bermuda is from the southwest, that is to say it blows from Somerset (upwind) down to the lower reaches of the island. We in Somerset get the freshest breezes off the Atlantic and we get them first.

Somerset, like most of the Bermuda parishes, was settled soon after 1612, when the first boatload of people, largely from the West Country in England, arrived at the east end. In that year, the settlers ¿ the first permanent human occupants that Bermuda had ever known ¿ founded the town of St. George's, which may lay claim as the first English town in the Americas.

Shortly thereafter, they built three bridges to connect the main islands to the ferry that for 250 years was the only way to cross from St. George's Island to the Main. The three bridges were at Coney Island, the Flatts and at the channel between the Main and Somerset.

So the Main Island, then called "Bermuda", was joined to Coney Island where the ferryboat ran the Ferry Reach gap to St. George's Island. It seems that the only through road westward from the bridge at Coney Island was around the north side of the Main, hence the necessity of the Flatts Bridge.

Thereafter, one could traverse the length of Bermuda to its western extremity, where Somerset Bridge gave access to the island of that name. It was only in 1903 that Somerset was jointed to Watford Island and thence to the Dockyard by a bridge.

In 1612, the "Bermudians" began building shelters and houses, all for some years in timber. Building stone houses appears to have begun in the 1650s, though archaeological evidence is lacking, due to the fact that not much such research has been conducted on the right sites.

Several late 1800s photographs claim to show the oldest stone house in Bermuda, aged 246 at that time. Until very recently, there was very little mapping evidence of houses in the Bermuda landscape, prior to the great Ordnance Survey of 1899. Now we have the extraordinary Hurd survey, completed in 1797 and produced as a manuscript map some years later.

Bermudians have generally known that this survey of the reefs took place in the last decade of the 18th century, but it is presumed that none ever saw the final chart. Had some Bermudian done so, we would have been aware much earlier what a tremendous historical asset and Bermuda heritage gem the survey is.

A written survey of all the significant surveys of Bermuda, published in the Bermuda Historical Quarterly in 1975, completely overlooked the Hurd map, underscoring the contention that no one here knew that the original (there was no copy until 2008 when the Maritime Museum insisted on having one) existed in England.

What is extraordinary about the Hurd chart is not only the detail of the reefs, but also great detail of the landmass of the Bermuda platform, showing roads, cultivated areas and some property boundaries. It also seems that the land map shows all the principal, that is stone, houses in existence on the island by 1797, shown as red rectangles.

With the Hurd map, for the first time ever, we can take a tour of Somerset Island, a couple of decades before the establishment of the Dockyard would bring many changes, as suggested in the National Trust quotation above.

By road, the tour is in part as it is today, there being only the main Somerset Road from the bridge, up past St. James Church, but terminating at Mangrove Bay near where the Post Office is today. Only two side roads were in place, along the line of Long Bay Lane.

Some 80-odd stone buildings can be identified on the map of Somerset, many of which may still survive in some state or other.

There were three main clusters of houses, one at the bridge end of Ely's Harbour, the next in the Somerset plain, that is the flattish ground in the central area north of the Church, and the last around Mangrove Bay. A number of individual houses appeared to be located on hilltops facing the Great Sound.

Some of these buildings appear in the excellent National Trust book on the architecture of Sandys Parish, but many do not, for various reasons.

What is illustrated by the data on the Hurd map is symptomatic of much of our history: we simply do not know the true facts because the detailed historical work or archaeological research has yet to be carried out. What we can suggest is that during a tour of Somerset Island by road, horse, or foot in 1797, you would have seen some 80 houses, which today, if they still exist, would all be over 200 years old.

With the approach of the 400th anniversary of settlement next year, it might be an idea to start a research project to determine the oldest houses on the island of Somerset, so that we might have a better idea of its settlement in time for the celebration of its 400 years in 2012. This would give us a truer picture of the nature of the built heritage of Somerset, which may underscore the Trust's contention that heritage is different from the rest of Bermuda.

Start by seeing if you can identify your house on the segments of the Hurd map published with this article. Happy house hunting!

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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.