Intention to Designate Under Part IV of the

Ontario Heritage Act - 2 Strachan Avenue (Trinity-Niagara)

The Toronto Community Council recommends the adoption of the following report (November25, 1998) from the Managing Director, Toronto Historical Board:

Purpose:

This report recommends that the property at 2 Strachan Avenue (Stanley Barracks) be designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act.

Funding Sources, Financial Implications and Impact Statement:

Not applicable.

Recommendations:

(1)That City Council state its intention to designate the portion of the property at 2 Strachan Avenue containing Stanley Barracks under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act.

(2)That the appropriate officials be authorized to take whatever action is necessary to give effect hereto.

Background:

At its meeting of November 18, 1998, the Board of Heritage Toronto adopted a motion recommending that the property at 2 Strachan Avenue (Stanley Barracks) be designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act. The property was included on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties on June 20, 1973. Stanley Barracks has been occupied by Heritage Toronto for forty years and was the location of the City's Marine Museum prior to its recent relocation to The Pier.

Designation recognizes the historical importance of the site to the military history of Toronto. It also identifies the building's heritage features.

The Heritage Property Report (Long Statement of Reasons for Designation) is available with the supplemental agenda.

Comments:

Short Statement of Reasons for Designation:

The portion of the property at 2 Strachan Avenue containing Stanley Barracks is recommended for designation for architectural and historical reasons. Constructed between 1840 and 1841 by the Royal Engineers of the British Army, the Officers' Quarters are the sole surviving component of the 'New Fort', now known as Stanley Barracks. For over a century, it served as the home of and a training ground for both the British and Canadian armies, and as the central military facility for the Toronto garrison. It is also associated with the origins of the North West Mounted Police (forerunner to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) who first trained here. Most of the complex was demolished in the mid-1950s. In 1998, Heritage Toronto ended its 40-year occupancy of the Officers' Quarters where it operated the City's Marine Museum.

The Officers' Quarters are a significant example of military architecture inspired by early 19^th century Georgian design. Constructed of Kingston and Queenston limestone, the building is covered by a steeply-pitched gable roof with nine stone chimneys. The two-storey symmetrical rectangular plan extends 16 bays on the north and south facades above a raised basement. All three levels have deep-set casement windows, and there are raised entrances on all of the walls. On the interior, the two stone staircases (extending from the basement to the second storey) inside the north and south entrances and the fireplaces are important features.

The Officers' Quarters are located on the south side of Princes Boulevard near the east end of Exhibition Place. (The designated area is marked by the existing berms and planters, but excludes the locomotive, boat and statue.) Historically, the site is linked to important events in the country's military history. An early example of stone building in the City, it is a rare and well-designed example of military architecture. The Officers' Quarters are also significant in their historical and contextual relationship to Fort York.

Conclusion:

Heritage Toronto recommends that City Council designate the property at 115 Princes Boulevard (Stanley Barracks) under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act.

Contact Name:

Ms. Kathryn Anderson

Preservation Officer, Historical Preservation Division, Toronto Historical Board

Tel: 392-6827, ext. 239

Fax: 392-6834

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Heritage Toronto

Heritage Property Report

Officers' Quarters, New Fort

(Stanley Barracks)

2 Strachan Avenue

November 1998

Table of Contents

Basic Building Data

Historical Background

1.Garrison Common

2.'New Fort'

Architectural Description

Context

Summary

Sources Consulted

Attachments:

IShort Statement of Reasons for Designation

IILocation Map

IIIPhotographs

IVInterior Plan, Stanley Barracks

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Heritage Toronto

Heritage Property Report

Basic Building Data:

Address:2 Strachan Avenue (south side of Princes' Boulevard, west of Princes' Gates)

Ward:20

Current Name:Stanley Barracks

Historical Name:Officers' Quarters, New Fort

Construction Date:1840-1841

Architect:Royal Engineers

Contractor/Builder:Royal Engineers

Additions/Alterations:post-1957 (for Toronto Historical Board): slate roof replaced with metal; stone chimneys rebuilt; exterior stairs reconstructed on south and east walls; windows restored on south wall; shutters restored; for earlier changes, see "Architecture and Engineering Study of Stanley Barracks" prepared for the Toronto Historical Board under the direction of V. N. (Peter) Styrmo,1991

Original Owner:British War Office

Original Use:military (barracks)

Current Use*:not applicable

Heritage Category:Landmark Heritage Property (Category A)

Recording Date:November 1998

Recorder:HPD:KA

* this does not refer to permitted use(s) as defined in the Zoning By-law

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Historical Background:

1.Garrison Common:

In 1793, York was established as the temporary capital of the Province of Upper Canada and as a permanent military base removed from the American frontier. The lands along Lake Ontario between the townsite and the Humber River were reserved for the military. The placement of the west boundary of the Town of York at Peter Street in 1796 marked the first incursion into the reserve for residential development. In the 1840s, the military provided land to the City of Toronto for the Provincial Lunatic Asylum and the first exhibition grounds on Queen Street West. The Toronto Industrial Exhibition --forerunner to the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) -- opened on new and permanent exhibition grounds in the reserve east of Dufferin Street in 1878. By 1900, Exhibition Place extended east toward present-day Strachan Avenue and the site reserved by the Canadian military as 'New Fort' (the location of Stanley Barracks).

With the founding of York, the first British military post in Toronto was Fort York, established near the foot of modern Bathurst Street in 1793. Because the Toronto Islands originally were a peninsula attached to the mainland, there was only one entrance to the harbour, at its west end. The Fort York site was ideally sited to repel invaders, being located on the waterfront about one hundred metres north of the channel. (Since then, the shoreline has been moved nine hundred metres to the south through lake fill operations between the 1850s and the 1920s.)

As early as the 1820s, military officials wanted to replace Fort York with a new garrison. This desire stemmed from two problems. One was the need to build new barracks for the troops. As the facilities at the Old Fort had deteriorated rapidly after the War of 1812, there was a need for larger, better-ventilated, and permanent stone buildings. The other problem was defensive. By the 1830s, a sandbar - located approximately at the site of today's City Centre Airport - began to shift. This change made a position one kilometre west of Fort York better suited for a harbour defence. Accordingly, Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Colborne had plans developed for the 'New Fort' (Stanley Barracks) location.

2.'New Fort':

Colborne proposed to construct a number of stone buildings around a parade ground, and to surround them with stone and earth defences mounting heavy artillery. To supplement these defences, he hoped to build a battery on the new Queen's Wharf (which was to extend over two hundred metres into the harbour from the foot of Bathurst Street). On the peninsula side of the harbour, Colborne planned to erect three stone defensive towers as additional protection.

In the early 1830s, construction plans for secondary military posts such as Toronto were put off because the army's building programme in Upper Canada at that time exceeded budget estimates. It was not until the shock of the Rebellion of 1837 that work began on Toronto's new barracks, utilizing the 1833 plans. To finance construction, the army sold most of the eastern end of its Toronto military reserve, opening up the area south of Queen Street between Peter and Bathurst streets for urban development.

The 'New Fort' was built for 19,000 pounds in 1840-1841. Colborne's planned defences, however, were not constructed since the immediate crisis of the Rebellion had passed. The only security for the fort was a stockade surrounding its perimeter. Fort York continued to serve as Toronto's primary harbour defence until the Canadian army declared it obsolete in the 1880s. While the barracks at the New Fort were a great improvement over those at Fort York, they were hardly ideal. Furnaces were installed and other improvements were made to the barracks over the years, but soldiers constantly complained about their quarters. The New Fort also lacked storage space and married quarters, so Fort York fulfilled these functions until the 1930s when the City of Toronto restored it as a historic site museum.

During the New Fort's early years, the garrison was made up of several famous British regiments, such as the Royal Canadian Rifles, the Seventy-First Highland Light Infantry, the Royal Artillery, and the Thirteenth Hussars. These troops played a significant role in the life of Toronto. They were major consumers of the city's goods and services, thereby contributing to the community's prosperity. The presence of an imperial garrison helped shape the character of the provincial capital, and the men of the garrison regularly rushed into the downtown to help put out fires. The troops were dispatched to help the civil authorities deal with civil disobedience, such as the riots that followed the passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill in 1849. The regimental bands from the New Fort performed for the people of Toronto, often as a 'public relations' gesture to undo some of the damage other soldiers had caused by their drunk or disorderly behaviour in the city.

The British army withdrew from Toronto in 1870, transferring responsibility for the city's military works to the new Dominion of Canada. The first detachment of the Canadian Permanent Force moved into the New Fort in 1872 to discharge their primary responsibility of training the Toronto militia regiments that provided defence for the community. In 1873, following the establishment of the North-West Mounted Police (later the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP), the first "Mounties" assembled and trained at the New Fort before beginning their journey to bring law and order to the Canadian West.

After 1883, the garrison was enlarged when 'C' Company of the School of Infantry moved into the New Fort. (In the 1890s, the School of Infantry was reorganized as the Royal Canadian Regiment.) The Royal Canadian Dragoons transferred to Toronto in 1893, adding a cavalry component to the garrison. At the same time, the federal government renamed the New Fort 'Stanley Barracks' in honour of the retiring governor-general, Lord Stanley of Preston (of Stanley Cup fame).

From Stanley Barracks, regulars and militia marched off to repel the Fenian raiders in the Niagara Peninsula in 1866, to suppress the Red River Rebellion of 1870, to put down the North West Rebellion in 1885, to assert Canadian sovereignty in the Yukon goldfields of the 1890s, and to participate in imperial defence in the South African War at the turn of the century. During World War I, the number of troops being trained in Toronto at any one time numbered in the thousands. Stanley Barracks was too small to house these men, so the army took over most of the CNE grounds, or 'Exhibition Camp' as it was named by the military. It was during this period that the New Fort was used for its most controversial purpose. Enemy aliens - German, Austro-Hungarian, and Turkish citizens - were interned for the war. Many were processed through Stanley Barracks on their way to camps elsewhere in the country. When the conflict ended, they returned to Canadian society through Stanley Barracks.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Stanley Barracks continued to house the Royal Canadian Regiment and the Royal Canadian Dragoons. World War II saw the reestablishment of Exhibition Camp. After the war, the army no longer needed Stanley Barracks. Abandoned by the Canadian army in 1947, the property was used briefly for public housing. Between 1951 and 1953, all of the buildings, with the exception of the Officers' Quarters, were torn down to create parking space for the Canadian National Exhibition. The entrance gates were salvaged and form part of the Spencer Clark Collection at the Guild Inn in Scarborough.

Stanley Barracks provided a home to the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame for a time in the mid 1950s. Then, the Toronto Civic Historical Committee, the forerunner of the Toronto Historical Board (renamed Heritage Toronto) took over the Officers' Quarters. In 1959, Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma opened the Marine Museum of Upper Canada in the building. It served as a museum facility until 1998 when the Marine Museum moved to its new Harbourfront location, 'The Pier.'

Architectural Description:

The design for the Officers' Quarters at New Fort is a modification of the plans for the building prepared by Colonel Gustavus Nicholls of the Corps of Engineers (Royal Engineers) in 1833. While not trained architects, the officers of the Royal Engineers received rudimentary training in architectural design as part of their curriculum at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, England. Individual talent, the availability of architectural pattern books, and international travel generally augmented this background. In Upper Canada, two stone redoubts erected in 1771 at Fort Niagara (to designs attributed to Chief Engineer John Montresor) blended function with high style, a combination that influenced subsequent military architecture in the province.

The Officers' Quarters at New Fort is designed in the Georgian style, influenced by English Palladianism and identified by its symmetry and Classical detailing. The building rises two stories (plus attic) over a full basement exposed in a dry moat. The building is constructed of stone, brick and wood with stone, wood and metal detailing. Above a base of Kingston limestone, the thick stone walls are built with Queenston limestone. A steeply pitched gable roof with metal cladding (replacing the original tin and 19^th century slate roofs) has nine large stone chimneys and stone parapets on the east and west gables. Designed to face north toward a parade ground, the long north façade is organized into 16 bays with an elevated entrance in the fifth bay from either end. The entrances are set in simple surrounds with rectangular transoms and Classical architraves. Single eight-panel wood doors have iron hardware. The entrances are reached by arched stone stairs that transverse the moat. Rectangular-headed window openings in all stories have stone lintels and sills. The openings contain recessed casement windows with 12-over-12 sash and display interior wood shutters.

The rear (south) wall facing Lake Ontario is identical to the principal (north) façade. On the side (east and west walls), single entrance doors are reached by stone stairs, while the upper stories contain rectangular-headed window openings.

The interior was originally organized as two distinct sections (once divided by a masonry wall to create self-contained units), with the east two-thirds housing the Officers' Quarters and the west third as the Barracks Master's Quarters. The wide central corridors that run in an east-west direction on the first and second stories are accessed by two cantilevered stone staircases with iron railings that rise from the basement to the second storey. Six of the original 39 fireplaces survive intact, although the stone mantels have been replaced with wood. Most of the wood floors, woodwork doors and hardware are original. The iron coal screen in the Plimsoll Room (on the north side, west end of the second floor) and the cast iron cook stove in the northeast corner of the basement are original artifacts. (The interior elements are described in the document, "Architecture and Engineering Study of Stanley Barracks", and the interior plans are appended as Attachment IV.)

Context:

The Officers' Quarters at New Fort originated as the centerpiece of a group of military buildings located on the north shore of Lake Ontario west of 'Old' Fort York. With the creation and gradual expansion of the Exhibition Grounds after 1878, New Fort was confined to the east end of the property near Strachan Avenue. The demolition of the other military buildings in the 1950s left the Officers' Quarters as the sole remaining component of New Fort.

The Officers' Quarters (Stanley Barracks) is located on the south side of Princes' Boulevard west of Strachan Avenue. Currently surrounded by a concrete parking lot, the building is located next to the Automotive Building and opposite the National Trade Centre, incorporating the Coliseum complex. The latter historical buildings are identified on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties.

The designated area is bounded by the existing berms and planters but excludes the current locomotive, boat and statue. Set apart from the neighbouring buildings, the Officers' Quarters is a landmark on the exhibition grounds.

Summary:

Historically, the Officers' Quarters of New Fort (Stanley Barracks) is linked to important events in the country's past. The inspiration to build the New Fort came out of a concern to protect Canada against American annexation. Then, during the trauma of the Rebellion of 1837, the government began the actual construction of the fort. The site was home to both the British and Canadian military in Toronto and served as an important training ground for troops who fought in Canada's little wars of the Victorian era and in the major conflagrations of the twentieth century. It is also associated with the origins of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

One of the City's oldest surviving buildings, the Officers' Quarters is an early stone structure in Toronto. As an example of early-19^th century military architecture, it is unique in the city. Its Georgian design exemplifies British military architecture in the city, province and country.

Located on the exhibition grounds, the Officers' Quarters is the oldest building in its original location at Exhibition Place and the sole surviving component of the New Fort. It is significant in its historical and contextual relationship to Fort York.

Sources Consulted:

Benn, Carl. 'Toronto's Forgotten Fort,' Toronto Historical Board Explore Historic Toronto 2 (1992).

______. Historic Fort York, 1793-1993. Toronto: Natural Heritage/Natural History, 1993.

Clerk, Nathalie. Palladian Style in Canadian Architecture. Parks Canada, 1984.

Dreyer, Fred. 'Three Years in the Toronto Garrison: The Story of the Honourable Gilbert Elliot, 1847-1850.' Ontario History 57 (1965).

Fortier, Paul. 'Fanciful or functional. The British military and Georgian architecture in Canada.' The Archivist (September-October 1990) 2-5.

Morton, Desmond. 'Sir William Otter and the Internment Operations in Canada during the First World War.' Canadian Historical Review 55 (1974).

Sendzikas, Aldona. 'The Last Bastion: The Story of Stanley Barracks.' MA Thesis, University of Toronto, 1990.

Styrmo, V. N. (Peter). 'Architecture and Engineering Study of Stanley Barracks'. Toronto Historical Board, 1991.

Kathryn Anderson

Carl Benn

November 1998

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Attachment I

Short Statement of Reasons for Designation:

The portion of the property at 2 Strachan Avenue containing Stanley Barracks is recommended for designation for architectural and historical reasons. Constructed between 1840 and 1841 by the Royal Engineers of the British Army, the Officers' Quarters is the sole surviving component of the 'New Fort', now known as Stanley Barracks. For over a century, it served as the home of and a training ground for both the British and Canadian armies, and as the central military facility for the Toronto garrison. It is also associated with the origins of the North West Mounted Police (forerunner to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) who first trained here. Most of the complex was demolished in the mid-1950s. In 1998, Heritage Toronto ended its 40-year occupancy of the Officers' Quarters where it operated the City's Marine Museum.

The Officers' Quarters is a significant example of military architecture inspired by early 19^th century Georgian design. Constructed of Kingston and Queenston limestone, the building is covered by a steeply-pitched gable roof with nine stone chimneys. The two-storey symmetrical rectangular plan extends 16 bays on the north and south facades above a raised basement. All three levels have deep-set casement windows, and there are raised entrances on all of the walls. On the interior, the two stone staircases (extending from the basement to the second storey) inside the north and south entrances and the fireplaces are important features.

The Officers' Quarters is located on the south side of Princes Boulevard near the east end of Exhibition Place. (The designated area is marked by the existing berms and planters, but excludes the locomotive, boat and statue.) Historically, the site is linked to important events in the country's military history. An early example of stone building in the City, it is a rare and well-designed example of military architecture. The Officers' Quarters is also significant in its historical and contextual relationship to Fort York.

Insert Table/Map No. 1

Appendices II to IV

Insert Table/Map No. 2

Appendices II to IV

Insert Table/Map No. 3

Appendices II to IV

Insert Table/Map No. 4

Appendices II to IV

Insert Table/Map No. 5

Appendices II to IV