Bermuda History & Heritage


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About Bermuda

Bermuda Architecture


	Bermuda Roof built for Hurricanes and rain water catch

The Bermuda House

The archetypical Bermuda house is a low, squared building with a stepped, white roof and pastel-painted walls, both of which are made out of stone. The buildings were originally quite plain, due to the brittleness of limestone and lingering Puritanical asceticism. Only two means of decor have been observed in seventeenth century buildings: "Eyebrow Windows" and gable-ends. Between roof and wall are a series of eaves painted a third colour, which is also used on the wooden shutters of relatively small windows. Often built on a slope, there is a set of stairs, wider at the base than at the top, leading up to a porch or verandah around the front door. Rare embellishments include a brick pattern down the corners of the building, and narrow moulding to highlight features such as windows.

The most durable material for the settlers to use was Bermuda's limestone as a foundation with the stone being cut into square bricks – typically about 2 feet by 10 inches. This method of using large stone blocks proved expensive, with one 1890 estimate being that a Bermuda house cost three times more than it should. The main cause of this expense was high labour costs, though the rarity of building-quality limestone also contributed.

These staircases were styled to curve out, so ending up far wider at the base than at the top. This flared style, known locally today as "Welcoming Arm" stairs, remains common. Less common variants used parallel arms, and in the narrow streets of the Town of St. George staircases were often flush with the wall. At the top of the stairs would be a porch-like vestibule, larger than was common elsewhere, where visitors and passersby could rest in the shade. These porch areas were continuously expanded with furniture and muslin mosquito nets. Wooden window shutters became common, particularly "jalousies" — which were hinged at the top — that were probably imported from the West Indies.

Bermuda houses must be white roofed and painted in pastel hues, with paint and sealer approved by the Chief Medical Officer of the Bermuda Government, although there are a few exceptions. The roofs are designed to catch water, of which there is no fresh supply in Bermuda apart from rain. The walls are designed to restrict damage from hurricanes and are required by law to be able to withstand wind speeds of over 100 mph. Houses are often given names.

The Bermuda Roof & Water


	The Bermuda Roof with push out blinds

Bermuda's roofs have evolved over four centuries to do two things: protect houses against gale-force winds and funnel whatever the heavens rain down into large cisterns that feed household taps. The roof is designed to collect rainwater, which is piped to the water tank under the house. Rainwater is the prime source of freshwater on the Island, there being no rivers or streams. By law, every house must collect 80 percent of the water that falls on its roof.

The earliest roofing was made of palmetto thatch but, partially from encouragement from the colonial government, stone shingles slowly came to be preferred. By 1687, only 29 of the 579 houses in Bermuda had been upgraded to stone and only 63 were shingled. Internally, well-steeped tray ceilings replaced the open-beamed Tudor style. Above this, the roofs changed considerably. The hip roof, shallower than its predecessors, was adopted, and roofing slates of thin, hand-cut limestone slabs replaced shingles. These slates with slightly over an inch thick, and ten to twelve inches long; laid over a cedar frame in an overlapping pattern, they gave a down-stepped appearance.

Finally, the roofs were coated with a mixture of lime, sand and water and, when available, turtle and whale oil to provide extra weather-proofing. Apart from the animal oil, this method of roof construction continues to be used. The walls, likewise, were often whitewashed, giving the island a faux snow-cover if seen from a distance, though American author Mark Twain preferred to liken it to cake icing, "the white of marble...modest and retiring [in comparison]". A common alternative to the whitewash was a simple lime plaster made — much like the wash — of lime, red clay and turtle or whale oil. If well-maintained, this plaster kept walls free of moisture, but if cracked, moisture would be retained.

As the water available for domestic use was obtained via the roof, the only way to expand the amount available was to expand the house laterally. Rooms were added to the existing block, first giving buildings a cruciform appearance and later leaving no standard floor plan for the archetypical house. By 1711, propertied Bermudians often lived in houses of three to six rooms, the central of which was called the "hall"; this "hall" served as the principle sitting and formal dining room. Porches were often closed in with stone walls and window rather than being open-air. Common rooms included the "parlour", a bedroom, two or three "bedchambers", an "entry" distinct from the porch and a peripheral "outlet" room often at the back of the house.

Early water tanks were placed not underground, but in adjacent stone structures later likened by one American observer to a lean-to. These tanks were fed via a stone gutter from the roof. Sunk six to eight feet down, they were typically rectangular and appeared barrel-vaulted above the surface. Other early water tanks were dug out from the limestone and the home built on top as part of the foundation as well as water tank.

Some commercial and residential buildings have wells which tap into a ‘lens’ underground. The largest lens is in Devonshire Parish - where there are three reservoirs at Prospect - and is about 10-12 feet thick, supplying about 750 million gallons. Other lenses are in St. George's Parish, Southampton Parish and Sandys Parish. The total capacity of all the water lenses is several billion gallons. It sounds like a lot but it is not.

The maintenance of the roof and water tank is vital. The roof should be power-washed or wire-brushed when dirty, or no later than once every two years, to remove old paint and fungal growth. Then it should be washed with undiluted bleach before applying an approved roof paint. The tank should be cleaned at least every six years. But this means emptying it first, then refilling it. Some properties have not had their tanks emptied, cleaned and refilled for 20 or more years. The health of occupants is at risk. Also, there is a danger that tanks not emptied and cleaned periodically will develop a slow leak, which will render the landlord or tenant liable to buy water, possibly frequently. Disinfect the water using 2-4 ounces of bleach for every 1,000 gallons of water in the tank.

To build a traditional Bermudian roof, masons mortar rectangular slabs, or "slates," of local limestone to each other over a hip-roof frame. Then they apply more mortar over the top and edges of the slates, filling the joints and giving the roof its traditional stepped shape. Along the lower edges of the roof, they sculpt a long concrete trough for a gutter, which directs rainwater to a pipe that filters it and funnels it into a cistern buried alongside the house. Then they give the whole roof structure a thin wash of cement. Finally, to keep rainwater as clean as possible on its way to the cistern, they paint the roofs with special nontoxic paint (a modern replacement for traditional lime wash), which must be reapplied every two to three years.

The Buttery and Kitchen

Before ice and refrigeration food was often stored in a ‘buttery’, which was a separate structure from the main house and designed to keep food cool. This was achieved by keeping the actual storage room raised above the ground, typically five or six steps worth of height, and using a pointed roof, enabling convective heat transfer to keep warm air from the food. Buttery is an English description for making and storing butter and milk; in Bermuda it was used to store perishable food in the hot weather. The Buttery is still built as part of a home today, but as an architectural feature, not for perishables.
Kitchens were also distinctive, occasionally placed in out-buildings or in basements to keep the heat out of the main house. Many have a wide, raised chimney possibly inspired by the open hearth.