The Na­tion­al Trust of Trinidad and To­ba­go says it is mov­ing to­wards se­cur­ing le­gal pro­tec­tion for the re­mains of the Cedar Grove Sug­ar Es­tate in Palmiste, de­scrib­ing the site as an im­por­tant rel­ic of the coun­try’s colo­nial sug­ar in­dus­try.

The Trust was re­spond­ing to calls by the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety to the rel­e­vant bod­ies to of­fi­cial­ly pre­serve the chim­ney and de­clare the old sug­ar es­tate a her­itage site. In a re­sponse on March 9 to a Guardian Me­dia sto­ry on the mat­ter, the Trust con­firmed that it is present­ly en­gaged in ef­forts to for­mal­ly doc­u­ment the site with a view to pur­su­ing ap­pro­pri­ate le­gal pro­tec­tion. “These ef­forts recom­menced in Au­gust 2025 and re­main on­go­ing. As with all her­itage mat­ters of this na­ture, there is an es­tab­lished statu­to­ry and ad­min­is­tra­tive process. This in­cludes con­sul­ta­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion with the prop­er­ty own­ers, the rel­e­vant Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, and the wider com­mu­ni­ty to en­sure that any pro­posed pro­tec­tive mea­sures are in­formed, bal­anced and sus­tain­able.”

In keep­ing with its man­date to iden­ti­fy, record, con­serve and pro­mote sites and struc­tures of ar­chi­tec­tur­al, his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance to the peo­ple of T&T, the Trust not­ed that the Cedar Grove Sug­ar Es­tate re­mains, in­clud­ing the chim­ney stack and as­so­ci­at­ed fac­to­ry el­e­ments, on the Trust’s Her­itage As­set In­ven­to­ry. The Trust not­ed that the site rep­re­sents a well-pre­served and tan­gi­ble ex­am­ple of Trinidad’s colo­nial-era in­dus­tri­al land­scape and sug­ar her­itage.

“As one of the few sur­viv­ing fac­to­ry rem­nants of this type, it holds sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­pre­tive val­ue for un­der­stand­ing plan­ta­tion so­ci­ety, the evo­lu­tion of sug­ar pro­duc­tion, and the lay­ered his­to­ries of en­slave­ment, in­den­ture­ship and post-eman­ci­pa­tion labour sys­tems in South Trinidad.”

Giv­en the age and con­di­tion of the struc­ture, the Trust al­so not­ed that the site presents in­her­ent safe­ty risks and ad­vised against unau­tho­rised vis­its. “De­te­ri­o­rat­ed ma­son­ry, un­sta­ble brick­work, con­cealed voids and over­grown sur­faces may re­sult in falling ma­te­r­i­al or ground in­sta­bil­i­ty. For these rea­sons, unau­tho­rised ac­cess to the site is strong­ly dis­cour­aged. Such ac­cess not on­ly pos­es a se­ri­ous risk to per­son­al safe­ty, but may al­so con­tribute to fur­ther struc­tur­al dam­age or loss of his­toric fab­ric.”

The Trust com­mend­ed the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety for its con­tin­ued ad­vo­ca­cy and for bring­ing pub­lic at­ten­tion to the her­itage as­set, not­ing that such civic en­gage­ment plays an im­por­tant role in the preser­va­tion of T&T’s cul­tur­al pat­ri­mo­ny.”

—Sascha Wil­son