Attention of the BC Electric Railway Company to Be Called to the Flooding Caused by the Ditches Being Blocked Along the BC Electric Railway Company (Eburne Line)
"W227" [writen on front endpaper and front flyleaf, crossed out]
"This book is the property of the"
"Mainland Fire Underwriters'"
"Association of British Columbia,"
"and is loaned to" [typed in black ink, plaque glued to front endpaper]
"Henry O Guhr Esq." [handwritten in black ink, signed on dotted line on plaque]
"for personal use only." [typed in black ink, part of plaque]
"New Westminster"
"Philadelphia Underwriters" [handwritten in black ink on bottom of plaque]
"Sl_ _ah"
"6" [handwritten in pencil on back flyleaf, inside a handwritten box]
[some writing throughout]
[illegible writing on cover in pencil]
1 photograph : b&w ; 11.7 x 17.0 cm mounted on 20.0 x 25.2 cm cardboard
Scope and Content
Photograph of the Burnaby Exhibit at the Dominion Exhibition held in New Westminster. Fruits, vegetables, grains, and preserves are displayed inside a building. "Burnaby" is spelled out on an arch above the display.
1 photograph : b&w ; 11.7 x 17.0 cm mounted on 20.0 x 25.2 cm cardboard
Description Level
Item
Record No.
036-001
Access Restriction
No restrictions
Reproduction Restriction
No restrictions
Accession Number
BHS2007-04
Scope and Content
Photograph of the Burnaby Exhibit at the Dominion Exhibition held in New Westminster. Fruits, vegetables, grains, and preserves are displayed inside a building. "Burnaby" is spelled out on an arch above the display.
1 photograph : b&w ; 12.4 x 17.0 cm mounted on 19.8 x 24.8 cm cardboard
Scope and Content
Photograph of William Whiting's agricultural display at New Westminster. Vegetables, fruit, grains and preserves are displayed inside a building. "W. Whiting" is spelled out at the base of the display. A sign reads "Third Prize."
1 photograph : b&w ; 12.4 x 17.0 cm mounted on 19.8 x 24.8 cm cardboard
Description Level
Item
Record No.
037-001
Access Restriction
No restrictions
Reproduction Restriction
No restrictions
Accession Number
BHS2007-04
Scope and Content
Photograph of William Whiting's agricultural display at New Westminster. Vegetables, fruit, grains and preserves are displayed inside a building. "W. Whiting" is spelled out at the base of the display. A sign reads "Third Prize."
Set on a large corner lot at North Esmond Avenue and Oxford Street, the Angus & Margaret MacDonald House is a prominent, two and one-half storey Queen Anne Revival-style residence. The high hipped roof has open projecting gables. The house is a landmark within the Vancouver Heights neighbourhood of…
Set on a large corner lot at North Esmond Avenue and Oxford Street, the Angus & Margaret MacDonald House is a prominent, two and one-half storey Queen Anne Revival-style residence. The high hipped roof has open projecting gables. The house is a landmark within the Vancouver Heights neighbourhood of North Burnaby, on a high point of land overlooking Burrard Inlet and the North Shore Mountains.
Heritage Value
The MacDonald House is valued as one of Burnaby’s most elaborate examples of the Queen Anne Revival style. The house retains many of its original features, including a prominent front corner turret wrapped by a clamshell verandah. The eclectic and transitional nature of Edwardian-era architecture is demonstrated by the late persistence of these Queen Anne Revival details, combined with the use of newly-popular classical revival elements such as Ionic columns. The interior retains a number of original architectural elements, and the early garage at the rear originally housed Angus MacDonald’s Cadillac, one of the first known automobiles owned by a Burnaby resident.
Constructed in 1909, this house was built for Angus MacDonald (1857-1943) and his wife, Margaret Isabella Thompson MacDonald (1862-1939). Angus MacDonald, an electrical contractor, relocated from Nova Scotia to Vancouver in 1891 and served on Vancouver Council from 1904-08. The MacDonald family moved to Burnaby upon his retirement from the B.C. Electric Railway Company, and he then served the North Burnaby Ward as a councillor from 1911-1916 and again in 1921. MacDonald Street in Burnaby was named in his honour.
The MacDonald House has additional significance as one of the surviving landmark residences, built between 1909 and 1914, during the first development of Vancouver Heights. In 1909, C.J. Peter and his employer, G.F. and J. Galt Limited, initiated the development of this North Burnaby neighbourhood, promoting it as one of the most picturesque districts in the region and an alternative to the CPR’s prestigious Shaughnessy Heights development in Vancouver. Buyers were obligated to build houses worth $3,500 at a time when the average house price was $1,000. Reputed to be the second house built in the subdivision, this house cost $7,000 to build.
Defining Elements
Key elements that define the heritage character of the MacDonald House include its:
- prominent corner location in the Vancouver Heights neighbourhood, with views to Burrard Inlet and the North Shore Mountains
- residential form, scale and massing as exemplified by its two and one-half storey height, full basement, compound plan, and high hipped roof with gabled projections at the front and side
- wood-frame construction including wooden lapped siding, trim and mouldings
- rubble-stone granite foundation
- Queen Anne Revival details such as scroll-cut modillions, octagonal corner turret, wraparound, clamshell verandah with classical columns, and projecting square and semi-octagonal bays
- external red-brick chimney with corbelled top
- original windows including double-hung, 1-over-1 wooden sash windows in single and double assembly, and arched-top casement windows in the gable peaks
- original interior features such as the main staircase, a panelled dining room with a fireplace and built-in cabinets, a living room with a parquet floor, and a rear den with an oak mantle and tiled hearth
- associated early wood-frame garage at the rear of the property
- landscape features such as mature coniferous and deciduous trees surrounding the property
The North Pacific Lumber Company in Barnet was one of Burnaby's first industrial developments and one of the largest in the British Empire. Partners James MacLaren and Frank Ross built the mill in 1889 (activated in 1899) as a requirement for obtaining 84,000 acres of timber rights in northern BC. Due to the mill's isolation, the firm built homes for its employees with families and bunkhouses for the bachelors which separated Caucasian workers from Chinese and Sikh workers. Barnet became a distinct company town with its own general store, school, post office, community hall and telephone exchange.
In 1911, the Vancouver Daily Province reported that “Mr. Harrison D. Morrison is building a twelve-room house of two stories and an attic, with stone basement, on Dundas Street, at a cost of about $4,500.” Harrison Donald Morrison (1864-1944) was a life-long contractor who lived in Burnaby with his wife Beatrice Amanda (née Smith, 1875-1954), until his death in 1944. This Edwardian-era house displays many holdover elements of the Queen Anne Revival style, particularly the elaboration of wall surfaces. In this example, the use of bay and cutaway bay windows, and integral first and second storey verandahs–now removed or altered–add visual interest. The distinct dual pitch of the roof is also a transitional characteristic, used in the late days of the Queen Anne Revival style. A later coat of stucco now covers the original ground floor siding.
This front gabled residence is characteristic of workers houses from the Edwardian era. One of the oldest houses in this area, it retains numerous original architectural elements such as its double-hung windows with multi-paned upper sashes, triangular eave brackets and a glazed front door with applied ornamentation. It was built for Isaiah Poirier in a subdivision that was created adjacent to the Rayside station of the Burnaby Lake interurban line of the B.C. Electric Railway.
The Sperling Avenue School was opened in 1914 to service the growing community around the B.C. Electric Company's Pole Line Road (Sperling Avenue). This school replaced the one-room Duthie schoolhouse.
St. John the Divine Anglican Church is a landmark wood-frame Gothic Revival church, with Gothic windows and spire. It is located on Kingsway, one of Burnaby’s main commercial thoroughfares, near the SkyTrain transit line and across the street from Central Park.
St. John the Divine Anglican Church is a landmark wood-frame Gothic Revival church, with Gothic windows and spire. It is located on Kingsway, one of Burnaby’s main commercial thoroughfares, near the SkyTrain transit line and across the street from Central Park.
Heritage Value
St. John the Divine Anglican Church is valued as a symbol of the traditions of early Burnaby pioneers and as the oldest surviving church building in the city. Established in 1899, St. John was the first church in the community and was located at a prominent intersection of the old Vancouver-Westminster Road (now Kingsway) and the British Columbia Electric Railway’s interurban station at Central Park. This prominent intersection of the road and rail developed as the town centre of the Central Park district. The first St. John church was destroyed by fire, and was rebuilt at the same location in 1904-05.
This church is additionally significant for its association with prominent local architect Joseph Henry Bowman (1864-1943) who emigrated from England in 1888. Bowman was a member of the parish, and designed both the first church and its subsequent replacement. Bowman’s prolific career embraced many stylistic changes and technological advances, and this church is a surviving example of one of his rare religious commissions. The design of the new church's nave and vestry was based on the Gothic Revival style of Christ Church Anglican in Surrey, B.C., which had been the former church of St. John’s incumbent Rev. William Bell.
Evolving over time as the congregation grew, the church received a number of early additions, and in 1953 was substantially renovated and enlarged through a new design by Vancouver architect Ross Lort. The original church nave was separated from the tower and turned to allow for a large addition. The congregation relocated to a new church in 1998, and at that time removed the church's memorial windows, leaving behind a number of the original art glass windows installed in the 1920s. The church building was renovated in 2004-05, and surviving original elements were retained and restored, including of the original church tower and interior chancel ceiling. A valued feature of the building is the original cast iron church bell that remains in the tower. It was purchased by the children of the congregation in 1912, and in 1924 was rededicated on Armistice Day as a memorial to Burnaby resident Lt. James Donald McRae Reid, who died in the First World War.
Defining Elements
Key elements that define the heritage character of St. John the Divine Anglican Church include its:
- location on the north side of Kingsway, opposite Central Park
- ecclesiastical form, scale and massing as expressed by the offset tower and tall, gabled roof
- tower with its original horizontal wooden drop siding, bellcast square roof with octagonal drum above and bellcast octagonal spire
- cedar shingle roof cladding
- metal cross at peak of spire
- Gothic Revival details such as: Gothic lancet windows with leaded stained glass panels; Gothic entrance door at the base of the tower; pointed-arch louvers in the tower; and exterior gable end scissor-trusses
- interior features such as wooden scissor-trusses with diagonal fir tongue and groove panelling on the ceiling above, fir tongue-and-groove panelling on the wall of the nave, and original cedar and fir pews and altar rails
- cast iron bell in tower
Account of Proceedings Before the Board of Railway Commissioners re Broadview Ratepayers Association and BC Electric Railway Railway Fares and Service on Burnaby Lake Line