Niagara Public School

Niagara Public School, today known as School House Bed and Breakfast, was a public school in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario (then called Newark in the Province of Canada). The school house is located at 40 Platoff Street[1][2] in the National Historic District known as Niagara-on-the-Lake or Old Town.

Niagara Public School
A graduating class from Niagara Public School

History

The large two-storey brick building was built in 1859[3] as a public school, serving the town's children until 1948 when the new Parliament Oak School was built nearby.[4][5] The construction of the school was a result of The Great Swap, the first and largest surrender of a portion of the military reserve around Fort Mississauga since its boundaries were created in 1796.[4] The portion of land was sold to the Honourable James Crooks, who in 1854 sold a partial lot to the Town Council of Niagara for "uses of Common Schools and Grammar Schools in the Town of Niagara forever."[4] It has also been described as being on the military grounds, and historic photos show cadets or other soldiers lined up outside.[6] One of its early principals was Janet Carnochan in 1872.[7][8][9] The school house served elementary grades and had four classrooms, two on each floor. In 1882, the school began serving both Roman Catholic and Protestant students.[10] The school was used until 1948, after which it was converted into a four unit apartment building.[3] In 2002 a long renovation began, and in 2005 it was converted into a bed and breakfast named the Allison House Inn, renamed BranCliff Inn in 2012, and School House Bed and Breakfast in 2020.[6]

The National Historic Site designation of the historic district, in 2003, includes buildings built from 1815 to 1859 in a 25 block area having "location close to the Niagara River on Front Street and extending approximately four blocks north to Castlereagh Street".[11] The school is on the southeast corner of a block that is wholly included in the district; adjacent blocks across Platoff and Davy Streets from the school are not included in the district.[12]

References
  1. Ronald J. Dale (1 January 1999). Niagara-on-the-Lake: Its Heritage and Its Festival. James Lorimer & Company. pp. 68–. ISBN 978-1-55028-647-2.
  2. Katherine Ashenburg (13 November 2012). Going to Town: Architectural Walking Tours in Southern Ontario. McClelland & Stewart. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-1-55199-637-0.
  3. "The House that Love Built". Niagara This Week. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
  4. Richard D. Merritt (2012). On Common Ground: The Ongoing Story of the Commons in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Dundurn. p. 109. ISBN 9781459703483.
  5. Dale, R.J. (1999). Niagara-on-the-Lake: Its heritage and its festival. p. 68. ISBN 9781550286472.
  6. "Brancliff Inn: History". Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  7. Cecilia Morgan (27 July 2015). Creating Colonial Pasts: History, Memory, and Commemoration in Southern Ontario, 1860-1980. University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division. pp. 24–. ISBN 978-1-4426-1683-7.
  8. Murray, H. (2002). Come, Bright Improvement!: The Literary Societies of Nineteenth-century Ontario. University of Toronto Press. p. 281.
  9. "Janet Carnochan". sandycline.com.
  10. The Canada School Journal. 1884. pp. 1–.
  11. Niagara-on-the-Lake. Canadian Register of Historic Places. Note: Supporting documentation is located at National Historic Sites Directorate, Documentation Centre, 5th Floor, Room 89, 25 Eddy Street, Gatineau, Quebec.
  12. See map of historic district within historic plaque: File:National Historic District Map.jpg, and verify school is within block bounded by Platoff, Davy, Castlereagh and King streets by Google StreetView of April 2014
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