The National Trust has mounted a photographic exhibition of Guyana’s built heritage, which is truly worth a visit. It includes pictures of some elegant buildings which no longer exist, and gives glimpses of a once greener, cleaner, more leisurely capital. Not all the images relate to Georgetown, of course, but since the city has been the country’s largest urban centre since the end of the eighteenth century, not surprisingly it is the place which boasts the greatest variety of structures and for which the photographic record is most substantial.

Many of the landmarks recorded in this exhibition have gone in fires - such as the Post Office tower, which had started life as the Tower Hotel, and the RA&CS building and Assembly Rooms all of which were incinerated in 1945. The RA&CS with its remarkable library, and later museum, was particularly unfortunate, having been burnt down in the nineteenth century as well as the twentieth. The solid, serviceable, concrete buildings which replaced the old Bookers and the museum, et al, after the 1945 disaster, can hardly be said to have the magic or aesthetic quality of their predecessors.

It requires effort and, nowadays, financial resources, to preserve wooden buildings in our climate, but that it can be done is demonstrated by St Andrew’s Kirk, which is currently celebrating its 185th year of existence. Every single one of its companion buildings in the Stabroek area from the second decade of the nineteenth century are now no more, including a surprisingly elegant guard house, whose appearance from the drawings which have come down to us seems altogether too sophisticated for its function.

Our generation’s particular contribution to the destruction of a wonderful architectural heritage, is neglect born of lack of appreciation. The eccentricity and absence of harmony in the building styles currently being inflicted on Georgetown can only be a consequence of a hiatus between ourselves and our traditions. And contrary to what is sometimes supposed, those traditions are of local provenance, although they have incorporated and adapted stylistic elements from elsewhere. Presumably it is the intention of the National Trust through their exhibition, to try and stimulate a greater awareness of our material inheritance.

However, raising the consciousness of the population to the built heritage must include raising the consciousness of officialdom as well. While much of the destruction of traditional buildings has been done by private individuals - the beautiful wooden house in Brickdam which formerly accommodated the old Teaching Service Commission comes immediately to mind - the record of the authorities while not without credit, is also not without blemish. Why, for example, did they allow the former Chess Hall in Main Street, which they had identified for the Tourism Authority, to deteriorate to a point where one morning it simply collapsed?

And what about Bird Cage Cottage, where Go-Invest is currently ensconced? Some violence had been done to that building long before Go-Invest ever moved in, but in its current state it is hardly an advertisement for the degree to which we respect our heritage, and neither, it should be said, is it inviting for foreign investors. Whatever other building should impress outsiders, then the edifice which houses the agency responsible for trying to attract investment certainly should.

The problem is not just a matter of maintenance - although the house is surely in need of that - it is the structural changes which have marred the architecture of the building. There is all that ugly brickwork which has enclosed the bottom of the house, spoiling its frontage, and obscuring the turned pillars which were once such an attractive feature. All of which is not to say that brickwork is not fine in the right context.

Money expended to restore the Go-Invest building, would be money well spent. When wooing investors, appearances are important, and what could be more impressive than a graceful Georgetown building, impeccably maintained and with a tasteful signboard sensibly positioned which does not distract from the contours of the structure. Perhaps the National Trust could be asked for advice as to what level of restoration is possible to return to the exterior some of its former style.

In the meantime, as many people as possible should try and go to the National Trust exhibition and get a sense of what our ancestors from the Winkels onward created, and the kind of traditions, both aesthetic and functional, which they tried to bequeath.