Citizens for Conservation (CFC) president Rudylynn Roberts said the demolition of a wall of the Greyfriars church, Port-of-Spain, will not affect the decision to save the rest of the building. In a telephone interview, Roberts said her activist group had several engineers and architects as members and one of those engineers had taken a look at the building.
She added: “We had a structural engineer look at it and he said the north wall (which was demolished by the building’s owner) would have to be rebuilt and the roof would have to be entirely redone. “It can still be restored. The manse is gone and rebuilding it is something that would have to be seriously discussed but what we need to look at now is the possibility of bringing the church back.”
While the different stakeholders are still in discussions with property owner Alfred Galy, the church itself remains open to damage from natural elements, including the intermittent rainfall. “The National Trust recommended that we prop the existing roof or take it down and salvage all the bits and pieces that will give us the template to properly reproduce the roof and the wall,” Roberts said.
She said the next step, in terms of conservation of the property, was to collect all the materials from the building site and sort through what could be re-used and what would have to be replicated. “That is what is done at President’s House. We need to go in and salvage and get materials to reuse,” she added. Yesterday, CFC member Christine Millar sought to clear up some misconceptions voiced by the public about the group’s involvement with Greyfriars restoration.
Millar said people had been saying that CFC only became involved when it was too late. She said: “About four years ago we were approached for help in their restoration. “We had many onsite meetings, both at Greyfriars and the Charlotte Street Presbyterian Church, discussed many ways of raising the money and decided that we should send a delegation to an appropriate minister of Government.”
She said that was done and in an “amicable meeting” the group pointed out to the minister that other denominations, both Christian and otherwise, had received much larger sums towards the needs of their buildings. “After this there was not another word from the ministry, neither to us nor to the restorer. Our involvement and interest with the Banwari Trace reads much like the above.
“We are mostly a lobbying group as we are without the resources necessary to put money where our voices are but continue to try to save our historic and heritage sites,” Millar added She said hopefully the new National Trust Board would help to get things right.