Queen of the East

Lying low and humbly along East Broadway (seen right in photo from water) among rising glossy giant office blocks is 'Queen of the East'. Despite having top Grade 1 status, today's Royal Gazette reports that this 18th century merchant house has been removed by the Minister of the Environment from Bermuda's list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest. This override goes a big step beyond the increasingly common 'benign neglect' treatment of the island's listed built heritage or the sudden disappearance of other historic sites (the recent demoition of Lodge Point at Dockyard comes to mind). But this move takes us into a scary place where the fate of all listed structures—which, by the way, hardly reflect the totality of built or archaeological heritage worthy of protection—are not inviolable or at least carefully and transparently debated, but open to the whims and politics and development needs of the day. Owners of listed properties and vying developers can now see a growing loophole wherby—with the Minister's rubber stamp—they can trade low historic value for premium development value and hard cash. After the site is sold off to its developer one wonders if we'll even have any record of the structure and archaeology at this 18th century site considering that this is not a requirement of the planning (or demolition) process. If it were, and at the expense of the developer (not the public purse), we might just have the professional archaeological team on the island we so desperately need...though with the rate of development and with breeches of protective covenants like this there won't be much left to preserve or investigate.