Oh, the noble Duke of York

He had ten thousand men

He marched them up to the top of the hill and

Marched them down again¿

Oh, a-hunting we will go, a-hunting we will go¿

¿ Action nursery songs, authorship unknown

At the top of the western hill of the historic Bermuda Dockyard stands the immense Casemate Barracks and its outer Ordnance Buildings, a monument of "World Heritage" order to the military "Dukes of York" who were responsible for its construction between 1825 and 1843, when the last outworks were completed.

At its height as the home of the Royal Marines Light Infantry, if not 10,000, at least 200 men were marched up the hill to their hard Bermuda stone quarters, at the end of their daily duties manning the guns and ramparts of the Dockyard.

The barracks remained in use as soldiers' and officers' quarters for a century from the 1840s. In 1963, the area became Casemates Prison, where men were marched up the hill for different reasons, the last day of penitentiary usage being September 23, 1994, according to notations on a daily duty board, yet attached to the wall.

Several years ago, with the kind permission of another military man, Lt. Col. David Burch, OBE (Mil), then chairman of the West End Development Corporation, the Maritime Museum began an assault on the barracks, marching volunteers up to the top of the hill on Saturday mornings, and back down again for beers at the Freeport Garden Restaurant with manager Valerio Ausenda.

While 10,000 volunteers would be great for any charitable work in Bermuda, we usually settled at a dozen or so, whose task had a single goal: to remove the vestiges of the prison from the more historic barracks and ordnance buildings of the mid-1800s, prior to the full restoration of the site as a major heritage monument and heritage tourism asset for the Dockyard and Bermuda.

Hundreds now form the cadre and roll call of cannon fodder for that military exercise, with cuts and bruises, but mostly aching muscles to show for their work. They have transformed the Casemate Barracks site and it is now the object of considerable interest among Bermudians, residents and visitors.

Several companies have devoted a day of work by volunteers among their employees to the project, the latest being Allied World Assurance Company Holdings, Ltd., or AWAC, as the acronym goes. For this job, the title is apt, for their task was to march up to the top of the hill and get to work "awacking" standing remnants of the jail.

Much work was completed and a satisfied group marched down the hill at the end of the day, having further enhanced the heritage aspects of the site by the removal of later structures. This article records the thanks of the Maritime Museum to all of the AWAC volunteers and their leader, Tracy Gibbons.

The Casemate Barracks and the Dockyard exist because our American cousins went independent in 1776, depriving King George III of his central North America possessions. Bermuda, the British islands of the Bahamas and the Caribbean, a few countries in Central and South America, and what became Canada in the north remained partly aloof from that revolutionary activity.

We were somewhat sympathetic to the "Americans", most in our own dietary interest, when we stole gunpowder from the Government Magazine at St. George's and shipped it to General Washington, apparently to be applied against the British at Bunker Hill near Boston. A sketch map of 1780s of the old town indicates the homes in St. George's that were "friendly" to the Americans. We intend to find out who occupied such treasonous dwellings.

Having appropriated all our good harbours on the East Coast, such as Boston, New York, the waters of the Chesapeake, and Charleston, the new United States forced the British military to look upon Bermuda with interest for the first time as a possible base for their ships of the line. Writing to his London headquarters in 1806, Simon Fraser, RA, the Commissioner for the military at St. George's, noted the potential value of Bemuda if held by enemies of Britain, or, if armed by the English, against the United States.

"For though Bermuda is a place of no trade, having no Staple, and can never produce any revenue to the Mother Country, being a mere barren Rock, were it ever to fall into the hands of an Enemy, (that) would be the severest stroke over West India trade ever experienced, as ships of War and Privateers may be at Anchor in St. George's Harbour, and in twenty minutes (be) at Sea in the very track where all our Ships must pass, and in the case of a rupture with America, (holding Bermuda) would prove of the utmost consequence in annoying their trade, both to Europe and the West Indies, and even their coasting trade would severely feel the bad consequences of such a neighbour."

Three years later (and 200 years next year), the British military acted on suggestions such as those of Fraser and the result was the construction of the monumental 18-acre Dockyard at the northeast tip of Ireland Island in the westernmost Sandys Parish. The Dockyard retained its military footing until March 1995, when all Royal Naval personnel were withdrawn from Bermuda.

In addition to the "wacking" or demolition of the remains of the prison period at Casemates, volunteers have also been recording many aspects of the site, including the use of 3-D laser scanners. Image no. 1 in this article is a picture of the scanning of the inside of the tunnel from the yard at Casemates under the Land Front Ditch to the gun emplacements of the Right Advance. Such a record and resulting image of the surfaces of the tunnel and gunroom would have been impossible to obtain, prior to the advent of such scanners. Professor Wolfgang Neubauer and a team of volunteers from the University of Vienna in Austria carried out that scientific work for Bermuda.

The Casemate Barracks and all the historic buildings and fortifications of the Dockyard are of equal heritage importance to Bermuda, if compared to the town of St. George's. As the bicentennial of the Dockyard is upon us in 2009, it is time that action is taken to ask that the Dockyard be added to Bermuda's UNESCO World Heritage Site, presently comprising St. George's and the fortifications of St. George's Parish. It was a regrettable oversight to have left out the other fortifications west of St. George's and the Dockyard in the original application, but a supplementary one can apparently be made to UNESCO for their inclusion in our WHS.

That would be a fitting action to mark the bicentennial of the Dockyard, as well as the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Bermuda in 2009.

* * *

Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. This article represents his opinions and not necessarily those of persons associated with the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm or by telephone to 332-5480.