Georgetown Seawall
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The most famous stretch of seawall in Guyana is the Georgetown Seawall.
Seawall is the name given to the wall of concrete built along the foreshore with the sea in Guyana, mostly in Demerara. It is part of the battle against the Atlantic Ocean. Earth walls are called sea-dams.
Seawalls were found necessary because of constant erosion of land by the sea. Historians note that two estates, Kierfield and Sandy Point, 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. (Tables of erosion and accretion, started by G.O. Case have been maintained by the government). It appears that accretion in the early 1840s was followed by erosion in the late 1840s. By 1855, the great Kingston Flood took place when the sea-dam 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 (now Mazaruni Prison), it was completed in 1892.
Serious flooding resulting from breaches in the sea wall took place at Enmore in 1955, at Buxton in 1959, and at Bladen Hall in 1961.
The Georgetown Seawall is a favourite place for afternoon walks, for listening to music (at the bandstand), for races on the beach, for spontaneous cricket matches, for lovers’ trysts and other activities.
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.
