Barbados Museum Trip - Barbadian 19th Century Architecture

  This was my first time going to this museum but i have to say it was fun, I learned a lot of important facts about my history, both small and big. One thing I learned about is something thats always discussed and a bit cliche but sad to say i've never really put the topic through its paces so heres a slight go.

Two developments influences the Barbadian chattel house, common by the late 19th century.

1) landless plantation workers who could be evicted at a moments notice needed homes that were 'chattels' , movable properties  that could be dismantled very fast, moved and reassembled elsewhere.
2) Cheap pine from America came pre-cut and dictated the dimensions of the houses.

With these two traits the main form of Barbadian architecture Evolved and like the Georgian Great houses it emulated, the chattel house is perfectly symmetrical with  central door and evenly spaced windows on each side.

                                                Scaled Replica of a Basic Chattel House.

 Each unit of this chattel house is its own entity, It could be separated from the other parts dismantled and moved to another site, the above example is a "two gable and shed-roof" combination. These housed seemed like something outs of a cereal box and could be put together by a class of 10 year olds, but they were architecturally sound to  the everyday basics. The roof required a steep pitch for the rain to run off, the pitch-pine siding is nailed to studs so that panels are quite rigid when assembled but can easily be separated.

White pine trimming covers the bolt heads and raw ends of the siding at the corners, and  "gingerbread" bargeboards trim the gable ends of the roof. These houses were placed on loosely packed limestone blocks to allow for its easy removal.

 A common native  feature in the architecture, these decorative elements were used to decorate facades and verandas. While the motifs on barbadian houses have not been attributed with any symbolic meaning, its said the designs were supposedly copied from pattern books or were of the personal tastes of the carpenter or owner, they were a main feature in the finishing of one of these houses though.

In the 19th Century Merchants and shop keepers  built townhouses or "shop houses" ( there are some still in town), The families lived above there own shops.  These stores varying in floors used there ground floor as the shop or warehouse, the second floor was used as wooden galleries to provide comfortable living space for the families whilst shading the shoppers below.