Today we were recording the structure of a former early 19th century slave hospital in St Josephs, Barbados. We drew out the basket handle arches found in this building and on the island, throughout the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, using chalk line geometry, to understand how the craftsmen would have originally laid out the formwork and cut the voussoirs of the arches.

Mark was assisting students from Grantley Adams Memorial School and the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute, technical college, to record the structure and map out the evolution of the former slave hospital at Blackman’s plantation, which now sits in the grounds of the school. It is the last former hospital on the island and the school and local community are keen to conserve but repurpose their heritage for a dynamic future.

M Womersleys on behalf of the Queen Elizabeth II, Platinum Jubilee Commonwealth Heritage Skills Training Programme, funded by the Hamish Ogston Foundation, spent a rewarding day working with the young adults and children, who were keen to learn how to start to record a building. We also removed some later cementitious render from areas of the walls, to expose the original full height arched openings, that may have originally been finished with Jalousies, fixed or opening, slated louvered doors.