Masonry


			Wattle and Daub


			When Mr. Pierre came to Petite Martinique and decided to make it his home, he had to build his house. In his time, 'Wattle and Daub' was most common. 'Wattle' refers to the inter-woven twigs or sticks across the wooden framework of the house. 'Daub' refers to the application of the mixture made to plaster the wattle. The mixture normally includes 'Mud' and 'Straw', but here in Petite Martinique they used 'Mud' and 'Cattle Dung'. The houses would usually have a central front door and windows on all four sides which were either square or rectangular holes in the walls with outside shutters, suspended from the top or the sides, that were closed at night or when it rained. The roofs were covered with a long blade type grass called 'Guinea Grass' commonly found on the island.


			Gallery, Gable and Putty-Go Style
			Gallery, Gable and Putty-Go Style

			Wattle and Daub continued to be built until it was condemned in 1955 when hurricane 'Janet' strike and devastated the Tri-island state of Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique. Majority of houses were totally destroyed. Mason's decided to try new methods of building houses to withstand the terror-stricken hurricanes. The roofs were seen as the strength of the house, so Mason's built the common 'Gabled Style' and included a 'Gallery Style' and a 'Putty-Go' with pitch pine boards and Shingle on the sides.

			'Gable' refers to the triangle shape rafted roof
	on the main building structure. 'Gallery' refers to the flat shape roofed extension. 'Putty-Go' refers to the Gabled roof extention that is normally built in the middle of the main building structure that serves as a 'passage way' or 'Entrance'. The house would be boarded with 'pitch pine'. Depending on the wealth of the owner, 'Canadian Shingle' would be used to cover the pitch pine boards to protect it and enhance the look of the house. Sometimes a 'cooler window' would be built to place water goblets. The cooler window is a beveled wooden window that projects outwardly, with a platform for resting the water goblet.


			White Lime
			White Lime

			As time passed, a new method of building strong houses evolved. The idea of burning 'Corel' with a plant called 'Manchineel' created 'white lime'. This white lime would be mixed with cement to be used in building the main structure of the building. Houses built using White lime were seen at the time the strongest buildings. An excellent example would be the Roman Catholic Church built in the year 1947.. Though white lime was highly respected as the number one type of structure, not many people had them. Corel was a problem to aquire and cement was expensive for the people. So they continued building the more affordable wooden houses.