BURFORD TOWNSHIP HALL
Burford Township Historical Society Museum and Archives
Photo ©
Clayton J. Barker, 1989
© Clayton J. Barker, 2008
The Burford Township Museum and
Archives presently occupies the south-westerly property at the corner of
the hamlet of Harley, consisting of about 0.4 acres and being municipally known
as #141 Harley Road, part lot 13, Concession 9 Geographic Township of Burford.
The main body of the building was moved to its present location from a
place on the same property but west near the property fence. This hall was
constructed in 1877 by a Mr. Owen and originally shared the lot with a large
hotel. The old “Harley House Hotel” which stood on the north-east corner of Harley
burned to the ground so Mr. Owen, who wanted the Municipality and the
Agricultural Society to remain in Harley (Harley was the seat of government in
Burford Township) constructed this hotel building and meeting hall. The hotel
was also named the “Harley House Hotel in honour of the M.P. Archibald Harley
who was a citizen of the district and politician. For about 50 years the hall sat on
a temporary footing without a basement and was situated about 5 or 6 feet from
the house next-door.
Photo
courtesy of the Late Belle Metcalf
View
from the south showing how close the Hall was
To the next
door neighbours house when it was first moved to this property
near the turn
of the 19th century
Hall is on
the right
Around the turn of the 19th century the
old Hotel building was moved north about a mile and a half to the farm on the
south-west corner of the Middle Townline and the
Eighth Concession Road where it was converted into a house. It seems that
around the turn of the 19th century it was more economical or made more
sense to re-use and move buildings rather than demolish or
"control-burn" as we do today...perhaps some local buildings
travelled more miles than their occupants did?
In 1926 Frank Rush, a Township Councillor from the
New Durham area, ran in the annual election for the position of Reeve and his
election platform was partially based on his promise to have the old Township
Hall renovated and placed onto a permanent foundation. Mr Rush was elected and
by June 1927 the Hall was moved over onto a new foundation with full basement
and north and south entrance stair enclosures or vestibules constructed. The
exterior was covered over in "rough-cast" or stucco while the field
stone base was later parged over to resemble a random or un-coursed block
foundation wall. The hole for the foundation was dug out by a
"slush-scraper" operated by Bill Sharpe and Bill Hammond who were
well known in the Harley area for their steam engine.
Photo courtesy of the Late Wallace Shellington
Collection
Bill
Hammond and Bill Sharpe
Steam
Engine, Harley
With regard to architectural style, the hall is a one-storey
frame building on a stone foundation which in appearance may seem a bit plain, however nobody can deny its landmark status and local
historical significance! Though it has an over-all Gothic influence, you can
also see a touch of Art Deco coming through in some aspects related to the 1927
renovation. There had been a set of double doors at the front of the building
which have been replaced in the past 30 thirty years with a single door. The
original pair of doors was installed in 1927 constructed in an obvious Art Deco
style with three square panels per leaf. The exterior finish of the building
was originally wood board & batten according to the photo taken c1914.
In the 1877 version of the building, there wasn’t a stage and the front and
back vestibules did not exist. The walls were board and batton
and the building was not as high off the ground and was without a basement.
On the west side of the building you will note
that the one window is not symmetrically located the same as the ones on the
east. This is because there was a Clerk’s office in the front right corner
where this window was located. You will also note that the upper walls are clad
with wood tongue and groove panelling. This panelling meets the same level as
the wood trim at the window and if you tap it you will hear that it is not
fastened very securely to the sub straight. Underneath the walls and ceiling is
all plaster on lath. After about 40 years, this plaster became cracked and
unpleasant to view or paint so it was covered. The ceiling about the 1970’s
false ceiling is “herring bone” style pattern and in the 1927 version of the
hall the lighting was by way of “school lights.” If you look above the present
double doors at the back of the hall you will see a cut out marking the size of
the original doors which was a single door. This illustrates that the panelling
was there previous to the 1927 renovation, but many years after it was
originally built.
NOTE: The windows are
constructed in a technique which makes window specialists think they are older,
but they are not any older than the hall itself. In the mid to late 1870’s this
was the most common style and construction of windows on public buildings in
our Township. Perhaps in other locality’s this is indicative of older architecture.
This is completely incorrect in Burford Township. Many churches and most
schools of the time were built this way here in our Township, which may provide
insight into the person who probably constructed them all; perhaps he was
building them in a technique that was most familiar to him and perhaps he was a
fairly old window maker. Who know? All I know is I have proof of the date of
construction for this building and several other school buildings which all
have the same type and configuration of
windows and they were all constructed in the late 1870’s.
The Township Hall
at Harley was used for many events including Garden parties and weekly dances,
receptions and some community groups met there. In the mid 1940’s (c1945 or 46)
the former Royal Bank building Royal was purchased by the local government,
located east of the main intersection of Burford,
where the Burford Village Trustees met and later
Township Council joined them under one roof up until the 1998 amalgamation of
the County of Brant.
Burford Township Hall 1927. Photo
courtesy of the Late Wallace Shellington Collection
The first meeting of the Municipal Council of
Burford Township was held at Dorman's (Vanderlip's) Hotel in Sydenham (now
Cathcart) in 1850, as a result of the Municipal Act. basically
for the next 50 years following that meeting, Township Council met in hotels
either in Cathcart, Burford or Harley. It seemed that the "seat of
Government" was usually based on the focal area or nucleus of the
population of the surrounding settled portion of the Township and the location
of the annual Agricultural Exhibition, for the main reason that all members
would have the same distance to travel to meetings. Therefore, from the 1850's
till 1871 both the Township Council and the South Brant Agricultural Society
met at the same hotels alternating between Vanderlip’s at Cathcart to the kerby Hotel in Burford to Conklin’s Hotel at Harley,
however during this time period Cathcart and Burford shared the “seat of
government” and the location of the Agricultural fair or Exhibition and the
Municipal Council meetings alternated between Burford and Cathcart..
In 1871 the
Exhibition and seat of the South Brant Agricultural Society was transferred to
Harley with the exhibition grounds being a 4-acre parcel of land located just
east of the corner at Harley on the former Bennett property. This exhibition
soon outgrew the location there and the Agricultural Society purchased a 7 acre
property north of the Village of Harley in 1889 where they also constructed a
“Show building” also referred to as the “Crystal Palace.” The seat of
Government was also transferred to Harley for the main reason that by the
1870’s the entire geographic Township was now settled and there were between 26
and 28 school sections or micro communities within the township limits to be
equally represented. Harley was (and still is) the centre of the Township and
some folks back in the 1870’s referred to Harley as the “Centre of the World”
and perhaps some still do today...
Frank Rush,
c1930
Photo
courtesy of the Late Laverne Rush
The Hamlet of Harley (formerly called Derby) was
founded about 1830 when Stephen Coon constructed an Inn just west of the present
village along the old Quaker Trail. Peter Lossing and other Quaker settlers
from the Norwich area, constructed the trail about 1810, however settlement
along the route was sparse until after the 1830’s. In 1857 Stephen Coon
and a Miss Sarah Higson (owner of part Lot 12,
Concession 9) collaborated on the survey of the Village of Harley known then as
Derby.
By the 1880's Harley boasted a General Store
and Post Office (established 1859) 3 Hotels, One Church (which housed
alternating Methodist and Anglican congregations) a School, two Blacksmiths, a
Wagon Maker (Bennett) a Tailor, a Cobbler, a Carpet Weaver, a Steam Saw Mill, a
Cheese Factory, a Grange Hall, A Railway Station (Brantford Norfolk and Port
Burwell Railway line). The name Derby was changed to Harley sometime between
the 186’s and
1870's after Archibald Harley (an early settler there) became a local
Politician and then M.P.P. for Oxford.
Map from
1875 Historical Atlas of Brant County
Note the
“Harley Hotel” (formerly the Queen’s Hotel) site here is the present site of
Burford Township
Historical Society Museum and Archives
The Cox
General Store is not showing (South-east corner)
Nor is the
B. Conklin Hotel which burned to the ground which is why the Hotel
across the corner
became the “Harley Hotel”
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Clayton J. Barker