01
OUR STORY
Transforming heritage into sustainable community futures in the Caribbean's Spice Isle
Island Echoes emerged from an unexpected journey. What began as an attempt to create an ecovillage in St Mark, Grenada evolved a deeper calling: to help the village of Waltham share its fascinating story with the world.
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In making the documentary Echoes of Waltham, the initiative, devised by British-Grenadian journalist Zoe Smith, became part of Palimpsest, a major transatlantic program spearheaded by Grenadian-born artist Billy Gérard Frank and Scotland’s Paxton House.
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The conversations sparked by that collaboration, combined with work alongside students at Bonaire Government School, led to the founding of Island Echoes —a broader initiative dedicated to transforming Caribbean heritage into sustainable community futures.
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Island Echoes brings together artists, scholars, students, and community members to build heritage tourism infrastructure that keeps economic benefits and narrative control within the communities whose ancestors lived these histories.
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02
THE HISTORY
Uncovering the transatlantic links and legacies that still shape our island today.
Waltham Estate, nestled in the parish of St Mark, holds one of the most powerful stories in Grenada’s colonial past.
Established in the eighteenth century under the French as a sugar plantation, the land that became named as Waltham was purchased in 1764 by Ninian Home, a Scottish merchant.
Home later purchased Paxton House in Berwickshire in 1773. Home used the wealth he accumulated from enslaved labour in the Caribbean and the Americas and huge mortgages to finance these purchases
The profits from the plantation sustained a life of privilege in Scotland, while hundreds of Africans and their descendants endured brutal conditions on the land that still bears the estate’s name.
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When Fedon's rebellion erupted between 1795-96, Ninian Home—then Grenada’s governor—was captured and ultimately killed, symbolising a dramatic reversal of colonial power.
Though the rebellion was violently suppressed, its legacy of courage and resistance endures, echoing through the descendants who still live near the estate today.
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Waltham’s story is not only one of exploitation but of resilience. The people who remained on this land after emancipation transformed it into a place of survival and community.
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03
THE MISSION
Connecting history, culture, and resilience across generations
Island Echoes exists to reconnect people with the living history embedded in Grenada’s soil, rivers, and hillsides. Through documentary film, oral histories, and immersive digital mapping, we honour the descendants of the enslaved who still dwell on ancestral land and whose stories continue to shape the island’s identity.
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We bring together artists, scholars, and communities to uncover forgotten narratives and transform them into tools for resilience, education, and healing.
Each project—whether a student-led map, a symposium, or a film—helps us see how the strategies of resistance and adaptation that sustained our ancestors can guide us through today’s climate and social challenges.
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Island Echoes is more than a history project. It’s a movement to listen to the land, remember the people who worked it, and re-imagine a future rooted in dignity, restoration, and belonging.
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THE SYMPOSIUM
Gathering scholars, artists, and community to reimagine the future of heritage.
In April 2026, scholars, artists, community leaders, and cultural practitioners will gather in St Mark for the first Waltham Symposium.
This three-day event is dedicated to re-examining Grenada’s plantation past and re-imagining its future through the lens of resilience, ecology, and ancestral knowledge. The symposium builds on the momentum of the From Waltham to Paxton documentary and 360° Mapping Project.
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The programme will open with a cultural reception at Mount Edgecombe Estate, followed by panels, films, and learning labs at where local students and international researchers will share insights into archaeology, oral history, and digital heritage.
Visiting professors of archaeology will lead immersive workshops, guiding participants in uncovering and interpreting the material traces of Grenada’s past.
The weekend will culminate in a community food fair in Victoria and a guided hike across Waltham Estate—linking scholarship with lived experience on the land itself.
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