East City

The heritage value of Peck House resides in its association with several of early Peterborough’s most prominent citizens. Built around 1850, this was the home of Arthur Henry Peck, a local brewer, his wife Mary and their son, E. A. Peck, who went on to represent Peterborough in the Dominion legislature for many years as a Conservative MP.

The Peck House is the only gable front stone dwelling in the City of Peterborough, and one of very few in Peterborough County.

The heritage value of Engleburn resides in its association with the Burnham family. It was built in 1853 for the Reverend Mark Burnham, son of the Hon. Zaccheus Burnham, the largest landowner in Otonabee Township and Ashburnham village. Architecturally, Engleburn is Peterborough’s best example of the Classical Revival, also known as the English Palladian style.

The Pines has heritage value as an excellent example of the Tuscan style of Italianate architecture as it developed in Peterborough. It was also home to several of Peterborough’s influential public servants. Harry Rogers purchased an acre of land from his father-in-law, the Honourable Zaccheus Burnham, one of the wealthiest landowners in 19th century Peterborough. In 1876, he built The Pines on this acre, named after the virgin white pine trees that covered the property. Active in the local militia, and Postmaster of Peterborough, Rogers was also one of the early presidents of the Ontario Historical Society.

The heritage value of the Absalom Ingram House lies in its association with the Ingram family and their relationship with the Burnhams. Absalom Ingram had worked for Reverend Mark Burnham in St. Thomas, Ontario before being asked to come to Peterborough to take over the operations of the expansive Burnham Estate. Burnham built the house, which acted as a gatehouse to the estate, for Ingram in 1854 and sold it to him 12 years later.

Burnham Mansion was built for Zaccheus Burnham Jr., the adventurous son of Reverend Mark Burnham, one of the largest property owners in historic Peterborough. Burnham bought the 150-acre property from his father in 1871 for $1.00, after returning home penniless from the California gold rush. Originally called the ‘Engleburn Farm’, the homestead was an effort to turn Burnham into a respectable gentleman farmer. The house and surrounding acreage was inherited by his son, Mark S. Burnham, who returned the property to a working farm. A large section of land to the east of the house was donated after his death and is now the “Mark S. Burnham Provincial Park.

The heritage value of the John C. Sullivan house resides in its association with famed Peterborough architect, William Blackwell and with John C. Sullivan, whose ancestors came to Peterborough with the Peter Robinson Irish immigration of 1825. It is also considered one of the best examples of the bracketed Italianate style of architecture in the City of Peterborough.

The house was built in 1886 for John C. Sullivan, designed by William Blackwell during his short partnership in the architectural firm, Ranney and Blackwell.

Built in 1877, Verulam was originally owned by William Snyder, a local lumber baron. After only 2 years of occupation, it was sold to John James Lundy in 1879, the same year he became Peterborough’s thirteenth mayor, and remained his home for forty years.

Its proportions and architectural style suggest that Verulam is the work of local architect and engineer, John E. Belcher, who created a number of other Second Empire style buildings in the City of Peterborough.

The heritage value of the Henry Calcutt House resides in its association with the Calcutt family of Peterborough and its striking Gothic Revival features. Built in 1866 by John Craigie and Jonathan Stephenson, owners of a local lumber mill, the house was sold to Isabella Calcutt in 1869. Her husband, Henry, was a local brewer, who also owned a mill, fleet of steamships and a resort on nearby Rice Lake. The Calcutt family occupied the house for over seventy years.

The Henry Calcutt House is an adaptation of the Gothic Revival style, featuring a high center gable and well-preserved bargeboard trim, with Italianate window detailing. The combination of features has been labeled ‘the culmination of the domestic Gothic Revival of architecture as it developed in Peterborough’.

A wood frame cottage built of stacked planks, the cottage was constructed on land originally owned by the Burnham family; it was the only parcel of land to be severed from the block prior to the Revered Mark Burnham’s death in 1877. The Stewart Cottage is also significant for its preservation of the original coved shiplap siding and porch elements, as well as neoclassical details such as the window and door surrounds. The cottage was the first dwelling erected on the block.

The Hay-Smit House has substantial architectural value in the integrity of its interior features. Built by Gustuvius and Rose Hay in 1907 as a single family home, the interior of the house has survived intact, with striking features such as plaster ceiling medallions, tiled fireplace, and stained glass windows. In addition to these visually outstanding elements, details that would have been common to early 20th century homes such as the original pine floors, wainscoting and trim, hardware, and bathroom fixtures have also survived. These basic elements create a picture of the interior of a middle class family home in the early twentieth century.

Built circa 1907. It features all original windows, many with stained or etched coloured glass, shutters, cedar gable shingles, doors, and stable at the south end of the property. The construction of the house using the locally made ‘sandbricks’, and the rounded edges of the bricks at window and door opening are also unusual features. The Robert A. Elliot House represents one of the first homes in Ashburnham built in a privately planned subdivision.

The Forsyth Labourer’s Cottage has good cultural heritage value in its association with early industries in Ashburnham, and as a good representative of a small 19th century worker’s cottage with an unusual coved soffit.

Built circa 1912, 7 Engleburn Place, known as the Patrick D. Fitzgerald House has excellent cultural heritage value through its historical associations and wellpreserved design and construction. The House was built on land that was formerly part of the Engleburn Estate, the Reverend Mark Burnham’s 28-acre farm and its Classical Revival home built in 1853. In the first decade of the 20th century, the farm and estate lands were subdivided into the Engleburn Park lots, and Robert A. Elliott, local businessman and real estate agent, purchased lots 9-12 and built his home on the corner lot.

The Peterborough Mattress Company (also known as Peterborough Mattress and Spring Company; and Peterborough Mattress and Upholstery Co.) remains one of the earliest examples of industry in Peterborough. First owned by William Faint, the Factory was located along the Otonabee River, on the east side of Hunter Street. The Factory was purchased by James Ellis in the late 1890s. Ellis moved the Factory to the back of his Mark Street property in 1927, when the construction of the new Hunter Street Bridge forced the closure of many of the industrial buildings in the area. 

When the Factory was relocated to Mark Street in 1927, the building was reconstructed by James Ellis’ father-in-law, John H. Bettes, a millwright with Quaker Oats. The structure reused the material from the original site, as well as materials salvaged from various other buildings.

The Mattress Company sold products to Marshall Mattress Company in
Toronto, local resorts such as Viamede and Mount Julian, local hospitals, Eaton’s, Harry McGuinnus’ Travel Trailers, the King George Hotel, and private homes in the area. Besides mattresses, the Factory manufactured springs and upholstery. Mattresses were filled with marsh hay, horse hair, wool, and feathers, all from local suppliers. In 1936, a branch plant was opened in Lindsay, Ontario. The Factory eventually moved to a new plant on the Queensway, where it remained in operation until the mid 1970s.

King George Public School holds cultural heritage value as one of the four ‘Royal’ schools constructed in Peterborough in the first decades of the twentieth century. Constructed during a time when Peterborough was experiencing a rapid growth in population, the school and its design responded to early twentieth century ideas about educational architecture which focused on hygiene, cleanliness and safety in school settings. The school features what was, for its time, an extremely modern heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, full indoor plumbing, and wide central staircases to facilitate rapid evacuation in case of an emergency. Architecturally, the school is an excellent example of a civic building constructed as part of the City Beautiful movement, which sought to increase the livability of cities through the provision of green space and the development of monumental civic structures.

The school is also an integral aspect of the wider Hunter Street East landscape and a local landmark in the surrounding neighbourhood and the city as a whole. Its monumental architecture and prominent siting on Armour Hill render it a visual architectural feature and local landmark which assist in defining Ashburnham as a holistic neighbourhood with localized services and structures. In continuous operation as a public school for over 100 years, the building is an important community asset with significant historical and associative value for local residents.

27 Charles Street has cultural heritage value or interest as a mid-nineteenth century residential property constructed in the Gothic Revival style. It employs a number of key elements of the style including the use of steeply pitched roofs and asymmetrical gables, making it a representative example of this house style. The house is also an important example of the use of stacked plank construction, a unique structural type in the Peterborough area. Historically, the property has important connections to a number of prominent Peterborough citizens through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including: local lumber merchant, Henry T. Strickland; Iva Fallis, Canada’s first female Conservative senator; and NHL player Aubrey Victor (Dit) Clapper. Through Strickland, the house’s first owner, the property also yields important information regarding Peterborough’s mid-nineteenth century lumber industry. It is a contributing property to the historic landscape of mid-nineteenth century Ashburnham.

Riverside Park Cultural Heritage Landscape has cultural heritage value or interest as a longstanding and important sports facility within the city of Peterborough. It is a landscape which includes the interrelated elements of sports fields, green space, the Otonabee River shoreline, and the Hunter Street Bridge which form a single, cohesive landscape that has evolved from the nineteenth century as an outdoors space for sports and recreation and has retained its importance to the community in this capacity. It has specific physical and design value as a representative example of baseball and softball field design as it evolved throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as in the high level of craftsmanship and technical innovation of the Hunter Street Bridge which marks the northern limit of the landscape. Historically, it has direct associations with and yields significant information regarding the development of organized sport, specifically baseball and softball, in Peterborough which is related to the growth of the community and its industrial base, particularly in the twentieth century. It also yields information on the development of parkland in Peterborough, both in a private capacity and as a municipal asset. From a contextual perspective, the landscape in an integral aspect of the former Village of Ashburnham, now East City, and helps in defining the wider landscape of the Otonabee River shoreline. Its longstanding presence, dating back to the late nineteenth century and its importance to the community make it an important local landmark, and it has been recognized as such since the early twentieth century.