By the end of the week one of Hamilton's oldest buildings will have been reduced to a pile of rubble -- and the Bermuda National Trust is being blamed.

The 200-year-old Trader's Gate building on Front Street is being flattened to make way for extensions to the Bank of Butterfield.

Bank management insists the new wing will be "traditional Bermudian'' in design and look even more authentic than the original building.

But the past chairman of the National Trust's historical buildings committee said yesterday: "It will never be the old building. The style will not be completely right and it will be a storey higher.'' Mrs. Joyce D. Hall said she was shocked and angered upon learning demolition of the building had got underway at about 10 a.m. yesterday.

She said she "couldn't stand the pain'' to go and look herself, but friends told her the cedar rafters appeared to be in good condition.

"I had hoped the bank might have changed its mind,'' she said. "It is supposedly `Bermuda's first bank' so you would have thought it would have been interested in preserving and maintaining our historic buildings -- and not creating a pseudo-building.'' Hitting out at the Trust, of which she is no longer a member, Mrs. Hall charged that its members had not objected strongly enough to the bank's bid to demolish the building.

"Although they objected, they did not strive vigorously enough to prevent it being knocked down,'' said Mrs. Hall. "The Trust has long had a policy that Front Street buildings should be preserved.'' The bank was given planning permission last summer to knock down the building.

At the time Trust president Mrs. Patsy Phillips told The Royal Gazette that she feared the old building's demolition would have a "domino effect'' on Front Street. She said the Trust had pleaded with the bank to restore the building instead.

Mr. Sjur Linberg of Barker and Linberg, which designed the new wing, countered that the building had been severely altered over the years and all that was left was a "shell''.

Bank officials said last week the new building would result in a facility that would give customers better banking services and increase efficiency. It would also create around 150 jobs, they said.

HISTORICAL REMAINS -- Mr. Alan DeSilva of Island Construction stands above a pile of cedar rafters as he supervises the demolition of the 200-year-old Trader's Gate building on Front Street.

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