Victoria Hotel
Bylaw: (2007)-18431
Legal description: Part Lot 19, Prior’s Block, Plan 8, and Part Lot 1, Plan 250, designated as Parts 1 to 7 inclusive, 61R3091
Designated portions
The following elements of 67-71 Wyndham Street North are to be protected under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act:
- The masonry and cornice of the front façade, including the original storefront and window openings.
It is intended that non-original features may be returned to documented earlier designs or to their documented original without requiring City Council permission for an alteration to the designation.
Property history
Built in stages from the late 1850s reaching its final form in 1877, the Victoria Hotel was one of the oldest stone commercial buildings left on St. George’s Square.
Built of locally quarried stone, the building comprised the southern half of the property only, and was two storeys tall with a gabled roof (ridge parallel to the street). Historical photographs capture the hotel as it existed in the 1860s as the completed two-storey front façade with full-length front porch. In 1877 the third floor was added and finished with a flat roof sloped to the rear.
During the 19th century, the Victoria Hotel was operated by Dennis Coffee (1860s), Dan Heffernan (1870s), Thomas Ward (1880s) and John Hogan (1890s). In the 20th century, the upper floors of the building functioned as apartments and office space, maintaining a commercial use on the ground floor.
The building was severely damaged by fire in the spring of 2007. Only the street-facing façade survived. The evolution of the structure was uncovered during the clean-up of the fire damage, revealing earlier roof forms and party-wall configurations.
The façade at 67-71 Wyndham Street North is an excellent surviving example of 19th century stone commercial architecture on Guelph’s central square.