Buildings on the Casa de VRx Compound
Buildings on the Casa de VRx Compound
Maitland House
Bannockburn, Ontario, Canada
This is Bannockburn during the first gold rush in Ontario in 1860. The gold was found about 3 miles to the south in Eldorado. They didn't get that much gold, and the Eldorado Cheese company is there now. There is a remnant of an old gold mine 1000 feet from our backyard and last year they stated mining an old shaft about a mile up the road. The grist mill in the forground is no longer there.
This is Bannockburn today, as you approach it from the south. You can see the barn on the left which is so big it obscures both the workshop and the house. Although barns seem to only last 30 or 40 years a lot of times, this is the original barn, still standing.
What is now our house, was originally the Maitland Hotel. It was built around 200 years ago. The original owner, seeing a local Scot get the better of an Englishman in a business dealing, named the town "Bannockburn" after the battle of the same name. The house is a bit larger than you might think from looking at this image.
This is the front sunroom after we just moved in back in May 1996. It was a bit messy then. It's worse now. What used to be the front and side porches were enclosed and made into sun rooms sometime in the last 80 years.
The original staircase leading upstairs is a simple log, hand planed to smooth it out a bit. It's rather rustic, and I wouldn't change it for the world.
This is the view from the back yard of the barn, workshop and part of the house. Between these two buildings is where our fierce watch-rabbits live. And the cats.
This is a front view of the barn as seen from the road. You can see part of the workshop on the right. When this was a hotel, what is now the workshop was the stable. It's no coincidence this place is one days horse ride south from Bancroft and north from Belleville, both very old cities.
A close up of the window at the top of the barn. The glass is very, very old and may be original. It's my favorite part of all these buildings.
From the back yard the barn looks like this. The white building on the right is a house across the road.
The workshop is about 60 feet wide, 40 feet deep anf about 25 feet tall. On the back of it is a covered area used to store firewood. On the left you can probably see what was once an outhouse and is now a tool shed.
A view of the back of the house. The
addition sticking out on the right used to be a large porch/mudroom/firewood keep. When it
was rennovated into a usable room 3 years ago, a sword from the loyalist wars was found hidden in the roof rafters. On the left the low roof covers what used to be a cistern, but now holds the recently installed oil burning furnace. About 50 years ago, when this house had several other rooms attached to it, there were 5 woodstoves to heat the house.
Looking at the back of the house form behind a woodpile. These are the trimmings of trees from a local sawmill. They are to be used to cover the exterior of the workshop which was covered with exterior sheathing over it's original plank constuction in an attempt to make it a bit more waetherproof.
Our neighbor to the north, Pat Hubbard, a local artist. Pat is moving, sadly, and this house is for sale. She is a dear lady, in her 60's who rennovates houses, does fine cabinetry and paints. This house is finished and she is moving on to the next one. This is the rear 1/3 of her house.
