The Micro-Village
There is a small group of buildings that I walk to a couple of mornings each week. It keeps me in touch with the history of my small city and reminds me that, in this age of “alternate facts,” there is still authenticity to be found in old buildings.
My route takes me down the street from my house to the café in the public square for an espresso. Then, it’s on to a narrow street that was once a movie stand-in for an “occupied Second World War European village.” The vista is terminated at the end of the street by the spire and carillon of my local church. The mixture of materials – limestone, red brick, buff brick, sandstone, slate roofs and fresh yellow-green leaves of trees bursting with fresh life – is intoxicating in the bright spring sun. I turn right, just past the century-old County Solicitor’s Building and now I’m looking straight at the former Ontario Land Registry Office, with a stone cairn in front, marking the location of the first registry office.
In front of the registry office, a blue ribbon has been tied around a tree as a reminder that even the most ancient of resources – ground water, as a definer of the limits to growth of the community – needs to be protected. It’s a line in the sand drawn by many local people who prefer to decide the future of their own city.
Past the Superior Court of Justice lies the Wellington County Jail and Governor’s Residence, built in 1911, of stone salvaged from the original octagonal gaol, of 1839. The Jail and Residence were designed by noted architect W.A. Mahoney, best known for designing Carnegie libraries. The jail features low towers with crenellated rooflines.The Governor’s House resembles the Georgian style. It is a mainly symmetrical stone structure with a wooden verandah that spans the façade. Some of the work on this structure was undertaken by my late partner Bill Jarrett, Architect.
The lane is defined by a composition of walkways, canopies and steps that trickle down the slope between the two structures. My progress is slowed as I explore the limestone walls looking for fossils and life from a much more distant era. The shadow of the tower traces a pattern of shade on the grass and flowers of the courtyard below, leading me into another space.
A segment of the stone-walled exercise yard is still intact in the south-west corner, of the 1911 jail. These walls of the Wellington County Gaol Yard are all that remain of the 1839 building that was the first permanent public building in town. The yard was the site of seven executions in the 1800s, including Henry White, whose body is buried there. In addition to the executions, 11 other inmates met their end during their incarceration in the old prison.
The planners I speak to stress the importance of community and human scale and point to the public lane and yard as important elements of a healthy micro-village in the face of the uncertain urban renewal taking place nearby. The urban expression of my city leans generally to the right, with an emphasis on tradition, and the reuse of history fits the mould. To my fellow citizens, traditionally designed cities reflect dreams of a world where people forever know their place.
Most visitors to the yard are unaware of the dark past of this quiet, restful site. But for me, the embodied irony provides an appropriate setting to contemplate the present, and these American days. With so many people shocked, disturbed or just plain baffled by Donald Trump’s spreading of “alternative facts,” it’s no wonder the dystopian classic 1984 is back in the public eye. After all, George Orwell’s cautionary tale described a society in which “whatever the Party holds to be true is truth” and “the Ministry of Truth” promotes “doublethink” and “newspeak.” The worries are that “Big Brother is watching” and “the Surveillance State” is with us. Unfortunately, I have recently experienced “Trump Chaos” within my own profession.
This place, with all its collected history and meaning seems to strongly remind me about that world of anxiety, fear and paranoia and the scariness of Orwell’s 1984, but at the same time, it shields me from the relentless confusion of today’s strange world.
The balance of my town is recycling itself now. Trying to be car-free, pedestrian scaled and sustainable. I leave this garden of stone by going through a carved and fitted arch and down a long spiral concrete stair and on to Thorp Street. From there, my route takes me past the new condo tower, around the modern performance art centre to make a connection with the river.
Through gentle adaptation, the Wellington County Gaol Yard and the buildings I pass along the route have withstood the ravages of almost 200 years, and I suspect they will survive for a few hundred more.