A TRAGEDY in two parts.
That’s how the president of the entity charged with preserving the island’s natural and built heritage has described the loss of a 200-year-old grand mahogany tree and the resulting destruction of a historic vault of a leading 18th and 19th century free coloured Barbadian family.
Yesterday, around midday, a resounding crash announced that the tree in St Mary’s Church yard, the site of the first church in the City of Bridgetown, had become uprooted.
When parts of the massive trunk were cleared, the damage to the soft stone resting place, which was in its path, became apparent.
The more than 150-year-old vault was that of 11-year-old Catherine Husband-Barclay who died on April 15, 1852.
Please read the full story in today’s Daily Nation, or in the eNATION edition.
