It is not uncommon to see the concrete structure lined along the edge of the coastline while travelling on the East and West Coast of Demerara. For some, it is a place of recreation, for others it’s where business occurs but the ultimate purpose of the seawall remains clear- it keeps the sea out from the otherwise below sea level landscape.
The construction of the Sea Wall began in 1855 after a flood in February of that year inundated the Kingston ward of Georgetown and washed away Camp House which was the former residence for governors of the colony. The first section, which ran from Fort Groyne to Round House was completed by 1860 and in 1874, the Public Works department of British Guiana committed to the construction of a continuous wall from Camp Street to Kitty. By 1882, the Seawall had been extended to reach as far as Unity Village.
Building seawalls was seen as a necessity because of constant erosion of the land by the sea. In actuality, two estates, by the names of Kierfield and Sandy Point, in Guyana, known to be existing in 1792, north of the present Georgetown Seawall, were completely washed away by 1804.
The foreshore is subject to cycles of erosion and accretion and it appears that accretion in the early 1840’s was followed by massive erosion in the late 1840s. By 1855, the great Kingston Flood took place when the sea-dam, an earthen wall, was breached. It was after this catastrophe that the sea wall between Fort William Frederick and the Round House was started in 1858. Built principally by convict labor with granite from the Penal Settlement at Mazaruni. It was completed in 1892.
In 1903 the Georgetown Seawall Bandstand was built with funds subscribed by the public as a memorial to Queen Victoria. The shelter north of the bandstand, called the Koh-i-noor Shelter, was erected in 1903.
Serious flooding resulting from breaches in the sea wall further took place at Enmore in 1955, at Buxton in 1959, and at Bladen Hall in 1961.
