The Magnificent Seven (Port of Spain), Trinidad (c. 1902-1910)

Historian Gérard Besson uncovers the colonial foundations of Caribbean cosmopolitanism, through the Magnificent Seven (Port of Spain), in Trinidad.

Seven magnificent buildings, each unique in design and craftsmanship, overlook Trinidad’s annual Caribbean Carnival along the Queen’s Park Savannah. Amongst them, a Moorish-inspired Corsican manor, a Scottish castle, a New England country house, an Archbishop’s Romanesque palace, and a French colonial complex stand side-by-side. Designed by European architects in the final days of the Trinidad Raj, and built with local materials and labour, the Magnificent Seven were yet the shared spoils of the island’s new cocoa economy. Their extravagance visually reflects Trinidad as the most cosmopolitan – though undervoiced – experiment in British colonialism.

PRESENTER: Gérard Besson, Trinidad-based historian, fiction writer, and author of the ‘Caribbean History Archives’. He is the Chairman and Publisher of Paria Publishing Company Limited, which has produced over 160 titles on the history and culture of Trinidad and Tobago. He holds a Lifetime Achiever Heritage Preservation Award from the National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago, and an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies.

ART: The Magnificent Seven (Port of Spain), Trinidad (c. 1902-1910).

IMAGE: ‘Killarney (Stollmeyer’s Castle)’.

SOUNDS: Nick Barrett.

PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.

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