Repairing Brock’s Monument
This week we get a rather unusual view of one of the most iconic places in the Niagara Peninsula — Brock’s Monument.
It has been almost 200 years since a monument was first raised to honour Maj.-gen. Sir Isaac Brock on Queenston Heights, where troops trained by Brock won a pivotal battle against an American invasion in October 1812.
The first Brock’s Monument had been raised there in the 1820s. On the anniversary of the battle in 1824 the bodies of Brock and his aide-de-camp, Lt.-col. John Macdonell, originally buried on the grounds of Fort George, were reinterred there on Queenston Heights. In the following three years the first monument, a simple 41metre-tall Tuscan column, was raised over their tombs. The monument was completed in 1827.
Thirteen years later that first monument was severely damaged by a charge of gunpowder set off by an intruder from the United States. That blast left the shaft of the column severely cracked and a metal railing that had encircled the top of the column was left hanging by a thread.
The original Brock’s Monument stood in mangled condition
from then until 1853, when its demolition was completed and space was made for the monument to Brock with which we are so familiar today — a towering Corinthian column 56 metres in height topped by a statue of the general,
his right arm extended, urging his men forward in battle. The new memorial was dedicated on Oct. 13, 1859.
But all that is prelude to what we’re talking about today. During a furious thunderstorm on April 5, 1929, a lightning bolt is believed to have struck the statue of Brock, sending his extended right arm hurtling to the ground below.
The area around the monument was soon closed.
It was clear that work would have to be done to repair the obvious damage but also to examine what other havoc the storm had caused and deal with other structural problems that had developed over the years.
In the following year work began.
Scaffolding was raised around the shaft of the column and on up to the level of the Brock statue, resulting for many months in the scene we see in this old photograph.
Deterioration of the statue was so severe that the top half of the figure was removed, lowered to the ground, and a new torso was carved, incorporating only the head from the original Brock figure.
The work on the figure of Brock was done, it was raised to the top of the column, preventive maintenance was performed on the column itself, the scaffolding was removed, and the monument resumed its former appearance, the appearance so well known to us today.
Footnote: parts of the monument’s original statue of Brock can be found today at a couple of places in Niagara.
The extended arm and one shoulder are installed inside the monument itself, while the statue’s chest and other shoulder for many years have been displayed on the campus of Brock University.