Jewels of the downtown
Why the Morrow Building and the two buildings that flank it matter to Peterborough
The Morrow Building and the two buildings immediately adjacent are jewels of Peterborough’s downtown. The three buildings together share a common history that has spanned 130 years, since 1880. They were built in a dramatic style, the Second Empire style, that was just beginning to define the confidence of the Peterborough business community. The first building in that style was built for George A. Cox, at the south-west corner of Brock and George. It was four storeys high, with the fourth floor inside the mansard roof. This grand building was followed by the Morrow Building in 1880. The next building in that style, built in 1881, was the Cluxton Building, at the corner of Hunter and George, which became immediately the pride of the town, and along with plate glass windows fixed the town’s confidence that it was the Manchester of Canada. The style became the local fashion. Those were the only three buildings that were built truly in the style. However, buildings in the downtown were modernized by adding false mansard roofs on top of the three storeys that already existed. The false mansards were often propped into place and were not intended for increasing the size of the buildings. The Morrow Building was the smallest of the three, as the mansard roof encased the third floor, while in the other two it covered the fourth floor. As well, it had a smaller footprint. However, as the last Second Empire building standing in the downtown it, including its north wing, needs to be preserved. The hotel building on Brock Street is a buttress of some significance. The excitement with the buildings at Brock and George was captured by the Peterborough Examiner, 15 January 1880. “The new Post Office building situated on the corner of George and Brock streets for Mr. [R. A.] Morrow has an aggregate frontage of 180 feet. This building is an ornament to the town, is three storey high and designed in the French classic style with arcaded ground story from whence spring pilasters supporting a paneled freize and medallioned cornice with balustrade and pedimented windows being roofed with a mansard roof, having neatly designed cast iron cresting and to the façade on George street, a central tower.” John E. Belcher was the architect and engineer for this building, and the contractors were Rutherford and Carlisle. Belcher was the leading architect of his generation, perhaps rivaled by William Blackwell. Rutherford and Carlisle were the leading local contractors. The ground floor was occupied by the Post Office, as part of a strategy that pitted downtown merchants in a political battle between the north end (Brock) and the south end (the farmer’s market). This proved a temporary location as a federal post office was built at Water and Hunter in 1886, a compromise between the Liberal north end and the Conservative south end. The new post office was built with an eye to also being convenient for Ashburnham. The entrance to the arcade was under the tower on the George Street side. The Morrow building had a rounded corner, a feature evident in all the corners on George between Brock and Simcoe, a feature still evident. The upper floors, except for two offices, were mainly given to the Peterborough Club which had reading rooms, billiard rooms, visiting rooms, a secretary’s room and bedrooms. At the same time, The Peterborough Examiner reported that Thomas Bradburn had remodeled the adjacent hotel, which was then occupied by T. Turver. As the Examiner said, Bradburn built “a handsome front, three stories high having a bold cornice and mansard roof with Dormer windows, thus increasing the accommodation by two additional stories of bedrooms. Credit is due Mr. Lasher the builder and designer. We are informed that during the extensive alterations the business of the hotel was not suspended for a single day.” The essentially new building cost $2,500; the Morrow Building, $10,000. The north wing was built as an explicit addition to the Morrow Building, also in the Second Empire, or French Classic, style. Again, John Belcher was the architect, and the contractors were Carlisle and Rutherford. The project was promoted by George A. Cox and James Stevenson, who I believe were also behind the building of the earlier Morrow Building. The fenestration on the second floor is an exact match to the Morrow Building, but the ground floor stores were built with structural cast iron, and with the plan to include wide plate windows. The heritage office thinks that the change in structure on the main floor may have been the reason for not extending a third floor encased in a mansard roof. This makes sense, but one wonders why a false mansard roof was not added. The three buildings were in 1880 and 1882 considered to be of a piece, and the photograph which I took in 2007 captures this complementarity perfectly. The windows in the hotel are smaller, the floor heights are shorter, but the line of the top of the second floor of the other buildings is lined with the head-surrounds. The Second Empire style is characterized by the symmetry of its features. At the lines on the second floor, the designs continue without a burp. We know the two parts were built at different times, but that is not evident in the building itself except for the modern update of the main floor stores on the northern extension. The other two Second Empire buildings in the downtown have long disappeared. The top two stories of the Cox building were removed in the 1950s, evidently when all the head surrounds were removed. The Cluxton Building was demolished in 1974 to build the new CIBC building. The destruction of the Cluxton Building coincided with the rise of the heritage movement in Peterborough and the introduction provincially of the first Ontario Heritage Act. As well, the false mansard roofs that were ubiquitous in the downtown have also disappeared. However, what has not disappeared is this. Peterborough is blessed with an incredible downtown streetscape, particularly on the east side of George Street. To my mind, this is a nationally significant feature of our local architecture. When Peterborough hosted the important 2009 conference, “Heritage in the Creative Community”, Peterborough was the showcase for the idea. Modern thinking over the past two decades has noted that young creative people such as computer programmers, artists, writers and internet entrepreneurs thrive in heritage settings. Peterborough’s vibrant downtown is spurred by the music, art and leisure that is comfortable with the ambience, and comfort of a downtown that has survived by respect and co-operation for a century and a half. The Morrow Building, with its north wing and the hotel neighbor, anchors the downtown streetscape from Brock Street to Peterborough Square. The character of the street is established by buildings that were built between the 1850s and the 1870s when Peterborough’s first fortunes were made largely by the importance of the lumbering trade. With one exception the buildings were built of brick, were three storeys high, had uniform fenestration from one building to the next across the entire block. The head-surrounds above the windows were complementary, and usually built of tin. The buildings were built using iron framing fabricated in Peterborough; some exposed bases in the downtown identify manufacturers such as Whyte, Hamilton and Helm. It is very rare to find three-storey streetscapes extending more than two blocks; even more if we consider that Peterborough Square was built to the prevailing height, and of brick. Peterborough was built more intensely than other towns because space was scarce within the walking city. From 1870 to 1920, the town doubled in population every twenty years, a rate that marks urbanization. Even our recreational space was pushed to the edges, or to Ashburnham. Our factories were built north of the city along the Otonabee, or earlier along Jackson’s Creek. By 1890s, we were pushing into the former park lots, with factories such as General Electric, Outboard Marine, DeLaval and others. The compactness of the downtown has proved to be its strength. The corner of Brock and George is our last reminder of the grandeur, confidence and co-operation that characterized the architecture of Peterborough’s early downtown. After modernizing, the Second Empire style ruled George Street for half a century. This beautiful corner is also the anchor for a remarkable streetscape on the east side of George that extends south for two or three blocks.