Georgetown Sights: Cathedral to Seawall
A wooden building with a cast-iron roof crest, standing since 1889 without a single steel beam, is nearing the end of a G$780 million restoration in the middle of Georgetown, Guyana’s capital on the Demerara River. That building, City Hall, is as good a place as any to start.
City Hall and the Public Buildings
Georgetown City Hall sits at Regent Street and the Avenue of the Republic, designed by Father Ignatius Scoles in high Victorian Gothic Revival style with a clock tower and hammerbeam ceilings. A few blocks over on Brickdam, the neoclassical 1834 Parliament Building (the Public Buildings) houses the National Assembly behind Tuscan columns. Both are worth an exterior circuit on foot with a licensed guide. GetYourGuide’s Georgetown hub lists current guided city walks that cover both stops.
St. George’s Cathedral
Rising 143 feet on greenheart and pitch pine timber, no structural steel anywhere in the frame, St. George’s Cathedral on Church Street is regularly named among the tallest wooden churches on earth. Entry is free, donations appreciated, and the cathedral is open daily outside of scheduled services for its stained glass chancel windows and Gothic arches.
Stabroek Market, From a Safe Distance
Stabroek Market’s four-faced clock tower, built in 1880-1881 by the Edgemoor Iron Company, anchors most photos of Georgetown, and it also sits on every current US, UK and Canadian government list of the city’s high-crime areas. US embassy staff are barred from it entirely. See it from a car window or alongside a guide, not on foot with a camera around your neck. A Viator sightseeing tour of Georgetown routes past the market this way as part of a wider city loop.
Walter Roth Museum and the Umana Yana
The Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology, on Main Street, holds the oldest Amerindian ethnographic collection in the English-speaking Caribbean, feathered regalia, blowpipes and dugout canoes from all nine of Guyana’s indigenous nations, open weekday mornings through mid-afternoon for a small fee. Nearby in Kingston, the Umana Yana is a 55-foot conical benab built by the Wai-Wai nation without nails, rebuilt after a 2014 fire and still used for national ceremonies.
The Seawall at the End of the Day
Finish along the Georgetown Seawall, where the tidal sluice gates (kokers) hold back the Atlantic and ocean freighters pass at the mouth of the Demerara River. Go in daylight or the early evening breeze; every source on Georgetown safety agrees the seawall is not a place to be after dark.
Confirm current hours before you go through the Guyana Tourism Authority or a licensed circuit operator like Touring Guyana , since museum and City Hall access both shift around the restoration schedule. Pair the cathedral and museum in one morning walk and save the market drive-by for whenever your guide is already driving past it, rather than a special trip on its own. For the river and interior side of Georgetown sightseeing, see the outdoor activities guide .