George Town travel guide

The largest town and capital of the islands is George Town, which is principally a business centre dominated by modern office blocks. However, many of the older buildings are being restored and the government is trying to promote museums and societies to complement beach and watersports tourism. When cruise ships come in the town can be exceptionally crowded, but at other times it is a quiet place where people work rather than live.

Four of the older buildings which are being preserved are the work of a local boat-builder, Captain Rayal Brazley Bodden, MBE, JP (1885-1976). He was called upon to build the Elmslie Memorial Church (Presbyterian, on Harbour Drive, opposite the docks) in 1923. He put in a remarkable roof, with timbers largely salvaged from shipwrecks. Admiration was such that he was asked to design the Town Hall, a peace memorial for the First World War. It now looks tiny, but when it was opened in 1926 it was considered a grandiose folly, far too big for the island. Then came the Public Library nearby, with its hammer-beam roof and painted British university heraldic shields. Lastly came the General Post Office, 1939, which once housed all the colony’s departments of government. Bodden surrounded the main façades of the building with art deco tapered columns. All his buildings have an inter-war flavour. They are one-storey, made of shaped concrete blocks, poured to give a rustic, deep-grooved effect.

There is a duty-free shopping mall close to George Town harbour containing a 12,000-gallon saltwater aquarium, stocked with colourful fish.