You should see what’s under the wallpaper in Annapolis Royal
Colin Fraser takes a scalpel and gently scrapes away the top surface of a layer of wallpaper in an upstairs room of the oldest surviving Acadian building in Canada – the Sinclair Inn. He uncovers part of an ancient painting done directly on the old plaster.
Conservator Ann Shaftel, who moistened the wallpaper with distilled water on a cotton swab, says Fraser is a natural. They think the painting is from about 1841. And they’re working on every wall in the small room – it’s one big mural.
Fraser, Member of Parliament for West Nova, was in town last Wednesday to chip in some federal funds for Sinclair Inn – $146,194 from the ACOA Innovative Communities Fund, and $74,903 from Canadian Heritage’s Canada Cultural Spaces Fund. The Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture, and Heritage is adding another $25,000. That’s $246,097 in total.
While the work being funded supports infrastructure enhancements underway throughout the building, the central element of the project is the mural in what has come to be known as the ‘painted room.’
The other work includes repairs and painting of woodwork and walls, installation of heat pumps, new carpeting and a climate control system, upgrades to safety features such as fire detection systems, emergency exits and doors, improvements to the electrical system, strengthening of the floor, and the addition of new lighting.
Painted Room
For Fraser, who toured the building last winter, last week’s visit was a chance to see the progress in the painted room where Shafter and an assistant have since uncovered large sections of the wall revealing, among other things, water, boats, hills, and trees. Most recently, on the north-facing wall, she uncovered what looks like a Roman aqueduct.
The paintings were discovered more than 30 years ago when a leaky roof needed repair.
“Finding such an invaluable treasure gives us a glimpse into the past, and reaffirms how important the Sinclair Inn Museum is to our history,” said Fraser, adding that that is why the project will also include some restoration work on the painting, creation of visual story elements, as well as the development of a marketing and communications plan for the museum as a whole.
“The Annapolis Heritage Society’s conservation of the painted wall murals of the Sinclair Inn Museum is a project of national importance,” said William MacDonald, society president. “And the society’s efforts in preserving, promoting, and presenting this irreplaceable artifact of cultural heritage would simply not be possible without the generous support of members of the community and all levels of government.”
But the Painted Room art is not the only painting the project supports, said Fraser. “A number of framed paintings, which date back to the building’s origin, will also be restored to their original state,” he said.
Progress & Origins
Videographer Andrea Vanden- boer is recording the progress of the work in the Painted Room as Shaftel uncovers the painting centimetre by painstaking centimetre. And then there are all the tiny holes in the plaster that some are saying might be from shotgun pellets. The building goes back a lot of years and almost anything could have happened.
The National Trust for Canada purchased the building in 1981, said Macdonald, saving it from being condemned and successfully stabilized it. It was designated a National Historic Site in 1983, a decade before the entire town was designated a National Historic District. In 1984 ownership was transferred to the Annapolis Heritage Society – then known as the Historic Restoration Society.
“In 1708, Jean Baptiste Soullard was appointed the King’s gunsmith and settled in Port Royal – the capital of the French colony of Acadie,” said MacDonald. “In 1710, he built the front portion of what is now known as Sinclair Inn.”
MacDonald said Soullard was also a silversmith and likely practiced both trades in the building until the siege and fall of Port Royal to British Troops later that same year.
“Monsieur Soullard and his wife shortly thereafter sold the property to a soldier-turned-merchant John Adams,” said MacDonald.
Public House
Later it became a ‘public house’ – in 1747 - and continued as such for the next 200 years. Interestingly, the property was bought by German immigrant Frederick Zeiglar in 1781 and his last name was later Anglicized as Sinclair. He expanded the building by joining a second, and even older building, onto the back.