Lost in plain sight for years, historic fountain unearthed at Lift Lock
A piece of history has popped up near the Peterborough Lift Lock after years underground.
A cement water fountain dating back to 1904 or earlier is now partially visible on the east bank of the Trent-Severn Waterway.
It was recently unearthed as workers were clearing vegetation along the embankment.
Although it was underground, staff at Parks Canada were aware of the fountain, said Parks Canada spokesman Darryl Whitehead.
“It is an example of a Lift Lock feature that has been lost in plain sight from a community standpoint,” Whitehead stated in an email to The Examiner on Wednesday.
Whitehead didn’t have any information about the fountain on hand, but local historian and Examiner columnist Elwood Jones suspects it’s as old as the Lift Lock, created in 1904, or even older.
Judging by a photo of the fountain in its prime, Jones speculates it was designed for travelers, specifically their horses.
A similar fountain once stood on Old Water Trough Hill, Jones said. It’s the hill that Lansdowne St. W. climbs where Canadian Tire is today. The fountain was halfway up the hill so horses could stop for a drink.
What Jones isn’t sure of about the newly unearthed fountain, is if it was installed during the con-
struction of the Lift Lock or it if predates it.
Before the canal was dug in 1896, roads passed where bridges are today.
“What confuses me here is that I can’t see where the road is,” Jones said.
That would mean the traveller’s route could have connected to Old Norwood Road, with horses stopping for a drink before heading up Armour Hill.
If that’s the case, the fountain would pre-exist the canal.
“You’d expect that the fountain was somehow close where the road was and that’s the missing link for me,” Jones said of where exactly the road laid.