207 Church Street
PID: 70556329
“Moncton High School”
Description of Place
Moncton High School is a 2 ½-storey Collegiate Gothic Revival style stone building built in
1935 (phase 1), 1949 (phase 2) and 1987 (phase 3), situated on a parcel of land at 207 Church
Street, at the corner of Church Street and Mountain Road in Moncton.
Heritage Value
Moncton High School is designated for its architecture and for its important contribution to the
educational historic of Moncton.
While 19th century Gothic Revival is closely tied to New Brunswick, later forms of Gothic
Revival, widespread throughout the Dominion in the first half of the 20th century, made fewer
inroads. Even so, a handful of notable Late Gothic Revival buildings were successfully
developed, almost exclusively in the southern cities of Fredericton, Saint John and Moncton.
Collegiate Gothic is the evocative title given to the Late Gothic Revival as it was employed at
countless colleges and universities throughout North America. Affectionately based on the
medieval buildings of renowned British universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, the
Collegiate Gothic style dominated early twentieth century campus architecture in the United
States and Canada. In New Brunswick, however, the University of New Brunswick and Mount
Allison University constructed only a handful of new buildings during that period, and the
French colleges disregarded the style due to its English association; therefore, few Collegiate
Gothic buildings grace the province’s campuses. In fact, the best examples are in the public
school system, and the finest by far is Moncton High School.
As high school student enrolment steadily increased in the early 1930s, a large new school was
planned for Moncton, which would replace the old Aberdeen High School (now the Centre
Culturel Aberdeen). Designed by Halifax architect Charles Fowler (of C. A. Fowler and Co.), the
new Moncton High School was completed in 1934-1935 in a little over a year. The steel-framed
building clad in olive and red sandstone had its cornerstone laid on November 7, 1934, with the
structure open for students the first week of September the following year.
Nearly 2,000 people attended the official opening ceremony on October 8, 1935, where it was
called “a magnificent building”, possibly “the finest High School in the Maritimes” and one of
the most modern High Schools in the Dominion of Canada”. Monctonian Ambrose Wheeler was
highly praised as the contractor, whose winning tender bid was $462,255. Wheeler would soon
complete Moncton’s other major stone architectural monument, the Notre-Dame de
l’Assomption Cathedral. The school’s acclaimed interior was unique in the country for having a
modern auditorium, a full cafeteria and a rifle range.
A substantial classroom wing was added to the original structure in 1949, along with a new
gymnasium in 1987.
The High School is a local landmark on busy Mountain Road, and the main entrance confidently
engages the street with its courtyard, stubby tower, triple-pointed arch doors and oriel windows.
The building exudes dignity, stability and warm approachability, bespeaking the spirit of
collegiate education that the province promoted, idealistically as well as architecturally, in its
new high schools in the years between the Wars.
Character-Defining Elements
Key elements that define the heritage character of this site include:










The formal frontal orientation of the school to the corner of Church Street and Mountain
Road, with the building’s proximity tight to the sidewalk.
The public entry courtyard design at the same corner.
The building’s overall linear form, wrapping around a large central courtyard, protected
and enclosed by the structure’s volume.
The picturesque qualities of the Collegiate Gothic Revival style, evident in the school’s
use of slightly asymmetrical massing and mediaevalized decorative treatment, varying
degrees of stone texture, projecting Tudor-styled window/entry bays of various shapes
and heights, steep gabled roofs, front and side colonnaded verandahs, triple-doored
pointed arch auditorium entry, and the three-storey squared front tower with its pyramid
roof.
The fenestration throughout; with typical scholastic ganged window groups related to the
classrooms behind, numerous single or paired windows at various locations, and the
descending large multi-paned coloured glass windows at the auditorium’s southern
façade, corresponding to the sloping/balconied space behind.
The ornamental cast iron cresting at the tower roof peak.
The building’s cladding of olive and red sandstone – roughly-squared and rock-faced for
the overall stone exterior, with a smoothly carved red texture surrounding opening trim,
copings and bay projections (Note the 1949 addition features olive trim only). The rockfaced olive sandstone was from the Smith quarry in Shediac, while the red & olive green
trim sandstone was likely from the Albert County Memel Quarry and later from the
Rockport quarry.
Carved red sandstone figurative cartouches above the auditorium entry (displaying
figures of youth reading, playing music, spinning wool, and playing football) and
heraldic carvings above the main corner entry.
Decorative stone treatment throughout the exterior, including the large carved Gothic
quatrefoil patterns along Church Street, the monumental red sandstone stairs at the side
parking lot façade, the carved red sandstone brackets below the window bay along
Mountain Road, and the red-capped olive sandstone retaining walls.
Smoothly-polished red granite cornerstone listing “Moncton High School A.D. 1934”on
the front face and inscribed with names on the short face.Ornamental exterior metalwork
at the auditorium entry, including the grilles above the triple entry doors, and the cast iron
window railings above.
225 Church Street
PID: 70556329
“Peters Combination Lock Factory”, “Wallace Warehouse”
Description of Place
255 Church Street consists of the lands that are the former site of the Peters Combination Lock
Factory. It currently consists of a driveway and parking lot. It now forms part of the same PID as
Moncton High School.
Heritage Value
The former site of Peters Combination Lock Factory was designated for its association with an
early industrial venture in Moncton.
The original building, an impressive three-storey red brick industrial structure, was constructed
in 1880 for Alfred. E. Peters. Peters’ patented push button locking system was on track to
revolutionize the security fixture industry. New international laws and poor business decisions
saw a quick decline in demand for the lock. After a competitor discovered a work-around to the
lock’s security features, Peters’ lock industry collapsed.
By the late 1880s, the building housed Maritime Machine and Car Works and later, the Moncton
Manufacturing Company.
This building would then serve as a clothing factory for about 45 years under three different
ownerships, including the Campbell Clad Company, Humphrey’s Unshrinkable Underwear and
the Atlantic Underwear Manufacturing Company.
By 1960, this building was in use as a car and tire storage facility for Wallace Warehouse and
Cartage Limited. Wallace Warehouse vacated the site in the mid-1980s.
The building was demolished in 2002.
Character-defining Elements
-
Site of the original Peters Combination Lock Factory on what was formerly the outskirts
of Moncton;
The size of the lot representing the footprint of the large industrial building that once
occupied the site.