St. George’s Parish

Bermuda’s old-time soul can be found in St. George’s Parish, landing point of the first settlers and home to the oldest permanent English town in the New World. Wandering its shady backstreets, where peeling pastel walls, hidden gardens, and signs such as Old Maid’s Lane and Featherbed Alley invite soporific afternoons, visitors get a sense of traditional island life a world away from Hamilton’s singing cash registers, bustling sidewalks, and corporate milieu.

Both the parish and the old town are called St. George’s. The 400-year-old town, seat of Bermuda’s government for two centuries, was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000, along with related fortresses. The parish encompasses parkland and residential areas around the town, plus areas farther afield such as the airport, Southside, St. David’s, and Tucker’s Town. All of these sit on an amalgam of islands joined by bridges to form the eastern chunk of Bermuda’s mainland—the so-called East End. The town and its immediate environs, as well as Ferry Reach Park, sit on St. George’s Island; the parish’s other main islands are St. David’s Island, which is attached to the former U.S. baselands, now called Southside, and Cooper’s Island, a nature reserve and beach area also attached to the former military air station. Scattered offshore islands and islets also belong to the parish, including Smith’s, Paget, Hen, and Governor’s Island in St. George’s Harbour, and Nonsuch and Castle Islands spanning the channel into Castle Harbour.

Any tour of the parish should begin in the old town, whose tangle of skinny streets, including the original town grid of the early 1600s, juxtaposes immensely historic sites with the contemporary homes of St. Georgians tackling 21st-century lives. In a nation where consumerism is king, St. George stands apart as an anachronistic getaway offering amusements that often demand neither transport nor a fat wallet. A stroll around its harborside square evokes images of the rowdy days of American Civil War smugglers, whose latter-day counterparts are laid-back yachties on their way to a winter in the Caribbean. The old town is the kind of place where one can idle away the hours without achieving more than some serious people-watching and an ice-cream cone.

Thanks to its newly recognized historic status, St. George’s is poised for a renaissance, with new stores and restaurants and ambitious plans for restoration of the forts, a waterfront boardwalk, and installation of cobblestone streets with new signage. An interactive World Heritage Centre opened on the harborfront in 2006 to guide modern explorers to points of interest in St. George’s and beyond.

Key attractions include St. Catherine’s Fort, perched above the beach where shipwrecked Sea Venture castaways rowed to safety, and Ferry Reach Park, a national reserve where Easter lilies and cherry hedges line the eastern stretch of the old Railway Trail. Then there’s St. David’s, a quirky community long detached from the rest of Bermuda, which remains quite unto itself, both physically and as a state of mind. Once home to Native American slaves whose descendants today proudly trace their lineage to Pequot roots, St. David’s swirls with tall tales that linger from a heyday of whaling and pirating, its residents still innately tied to the sea.

Indeed, it is wholly understandable why the air pervading St. George’s harks back to another time; it was only during the Victorian era that the parish was finally linked to mainland Bermuda by a half-mile Causeway—and even that connection is at times tenuous. In 2003, when Hurricane Fabian’s surges swept over the winding roadway, hurling down walls and killing three Bermudians who were on it, St. Georgians, confined to the parish, found themselves once again fending for themselves. In January 2005, a day of high-force winds forced the government to close the Causeway for several hours, and less than a month later, a motorcycle crash on the skinny thoroughfare resulted in another fatality and shut down access to the rest of the island once again. It is one of the only times you are fully aware Bermuda is not a single island, but numerous smaller ones linked by man-made mechanisms.

Despite recent problems with youth gangs and petty crime, the parish remains a distinct society where neighbors generally know everyone’s business and the rhythms of life invite small-town generosity, candid opinion, and an utterly fatalistic humor.

King’s Square: Any tour of St. George and the East End logically begins here, where cedar stocks and a ducking stool hark back to less-civilized times. (read more)

The State House: The only surviving structure from the first years of settlement, this landmark building enjoyed myriad roles, including a gunpowder storehouse, the first parliament, and a court for witch trials. (read more)

St. Peter’s Church: Although its wooden predecessor was destroyed by a 17th-century hurricane, this remains the oldest continually used Anglican church site in the New World. The church’s segregated graveyards — one for slaves, one for white dignitaries — are fascinating. (read more)

Bermuda National Trust Museum: Once a Confederate headquarters, the historic Globe Hotel is home to Rogues & Runners, an entertaining exhibit about the East End’s key role in the U.S. Civil War. (read more)

Bermuda Heritage Museum: The story of abolition, black enterprise, “Friendly Societies,” and gombeys is told in this showcase of black heritage, housed in the historic Samaritans’ Lodge. (read more)

Tucker House Museum: Looking inside this former homestead of one of Bermuda’s most prominent 18th-century citizens is an enlightening step back in time. (read more)

Fort St. Catherine: Peer over the ramparts at the very stretch of ocean the first castaways saw after escaping the shipwrecked Sea Venture. This large fort is one of the best-kept on the island, with exhibits on early Bermuda and military life, replicas of the Crown Jewels, and even a kid-pleasing George the Ghost. (read more)

Bermuda Biological Station for Research: This world-renowned research center hosts pioneering studies on global climate changes, genome mapping, predicting disasters, and possible medical breakthroughs derived from the oceans. Free tours give a behind-the-scenes look at “science in Bermuda shorts” every Wednesday morning. (read more)

Cup Match: Don’t miss this annual cricket extravaganza if you happen to visit over the July–August cusp. Staged in St. George’s every other year (it’s held in Sandys in alternate years), the two-day festival represents an immediate initiation into island life. And don’t worry if the game leaves you cold; the gambling, rum, fish sandwiches, and convivial crowds will more than make up for it. (read more)

Carter House: This 300-year-old home-turned-museum tells the intriguing story of St. David’s, from the neighborhood’s days of whaling and harvesting Easter lilies to the advent of the U.S. baselands. (read more)

St. David’s Battery and Great Head Park: Clinging to a towering, remote cliff-top, this national park boasts dizzying views alongside historic battlements used for coastal defense up to World War II. (read more)