Follow us on:

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube

Archive -Seychelles

Seychelles Heritage Foundation commemorates Heritage Week on Praslin |28 April 2016

 

 

As part of activities to mark Heritage Week earlier this month the Seychelles Heritage Foundation also carried out activities on Praslin. Those included the official unveiling of an information board with the history and other details in all three national languages of one of the remaining lime kilns on the island.

The lime kilns or four laso in Creole were used long ago to bake pieces of coral and turn them it into a powder form which was later sieved, mixed with red earth and sometimes with gravel to make mortar to be used for construction purposes. 

This particular kiln which was very useful to the construction industry in the 1900s was built by the late Arthur Savy and was operational until the late 1960s.

The kiln lies on the property of the Confait family who maintains the premises and the kiln itself, so that visitors and locals can visit it and learn about its rich and important history. 

Many buildings on both Praslin and Mahé used lime from this kiln; some of which are still currently in use like the dining hall of the Praslin secondary school, St Matthews Church at Grand Anse and the old Grand Anse Praslin National Library.

This activity was followed by the discovery of the National Heritage Trail found on the premises of the Iles des Palmes Eco Resort, a tourism establishment owned by the Gill family.

The trail which is already operational, is a ride through our culture where one gets to discover an old calorifère building built in the 1940s, a copra mill moulded by hand from the trunk of a mature Takamaka tree, a patchouli house, Aldabra giant tortoises, a distillery used to produce cinnamon essence, an old pirate oven and an old water tank formerly used to supply water to a grann kaz found on the premises.

“We are  calling  on the locals to visit the trail and learn about our culture as well as the DMCs to partner with us and get visitors to tour the trail while on Praslin  and  contribute towards maintaining the trail,” Christopher Gill, the owner of the premises said.

 

Text: Nadia Bedier. Photos: Romano Laurence

 

 

 

» Back to Archive