The William Melbourne House is located at 97 Church St. (at the corner of Church and Frederick Streets). It was built in the Gothic Revival style in the 1870-80’s by Bill Curry. The 1½-storey, three-bay ‘cottage’ has large window openings with high floor to ceiling heights and a steeply-pitched, gable roof. There is a centre gable over the entrance. The building has a rectangular plan and a centre entrance hall. A ‘Regency Style’ entrance has arched tracery in the multi-paned transom and sidelights. The shallow pediment, entablature, and pilasters framing the entrance indicate a neoclassical influence. The bay windows at the ground floor have three-sided, angular projections and a hip roof. A semi-circular, arched window with a transom of multi-paned fanlights is located fully within the centre gable at the second floor as well as decorative gingerbread along the eaves and verges. There is a wood ‘drop’ or pendant suspended from the mid-point of the centre gable. The finial was originally above the gable. The cornice around the roof of the bay windows is decorated with dentils. Paired brick chimneys (with stacks set on the diagonal) are found at each side of the house. The house has wood frame construction with painted stucco cladding (1933) on the original wood cove siding. It has a stone foundation. The double-hung windows and storm entrance door are not original. According to the 2000 inventory, the house is in excellent condition with many original features. The gingerbread trim was removed and the stucco was replaced with vinyl siding after the inventory. (1, 3)
The William Melbourne House is located at 97 Church St. (at the corner of Church and Frederick Streets). It was built in the Gothic Revival style in the 1870-80’s by Bill Curry. The 1½-storey, three-bay ‘cottage’ has large window openings with high floor to ceiling heights and a steeply-pitched, gable roof. There is a centre gable over the entrance. The building has a rectangular plan and a centre entrance hall. A ‘Regency Style’ entrance has arched tracery in the multi-paned transom and sidelights. The shallow pediment, entablature, and pilasters framing the entrance indicate a neoclassical influence. The bay windows at the ground floor have three-sided, angular projections and a hip roof. A semi-circular, arched window with a transom of multi-paned fanlights is located fully within the centre gable at the second floor as well as decorative gingerbread along the eaves and verges. There is a wood ‘drop’ or pendant suspended from the mid-point of the centre gable. The finial was originally above the gable. The cornice around the roof of the bay windows is decorated with dentils. Paired brick chimneys (with stacks set on the diagonal) are found at each side of the house. The house has wood frame construction with painted stucco cladding (1933) on the original wood cove siding. It has a stone foundation. The double-hung windows and storm entrance door are not original. According to the 2000 inventory, the house is in excellent condition with many original features. The gingerbread trim was removed and the stucco was replaced with vinyl siding after the inventory. (1, 3)
The Pringle House is located mid-block on the east side at 99 Barrie Street. It was the home of Walter Pringle, owner and manager of the first Dominion store (on Holland St.) in the 1930’s. The 1½-storey, two-bay ‘bungalow’ was built in the Arts and Crafts style. The construction of this house (and six others) was begun in 1912 by Lieutenant George Stoddart. When Stoddart went overseas during WWI, the projects were completed by builder Art Saint. The house has a simple form with an asymmetrical façade and a rectilinear plan. It has a bell-cast roof on the centre dormer and a steeply-pitched, truncated gable roof that extends down to reduce the scale of the building. This roof also covers the raised porch and is supported on wood half posts on brick piers. The porch has a simple, wood handrail and baluster. Wood lattice encloses the underside of the porch. A wide band of windows across the front of the dormer emphasizes the horizontal lines and the massing of the house. The building has wide window openings with low floor to ceiling heights. Ground-floor and basement windows and the front door are set into segmented, arched openings with concrete sills. Second-storey windows are offset from the ground-floor windows and have plain, wood sills and trim. The mix of exterior cladding materials and the wood fascia band (expressing the line of the floor structure between the ground and second floors) is common to this style. There are returned eaves at the porch roof. The house has wood frame construction with brick masonry cladding, painted wood shingles on the dormer, and a painted, concrete foundation. The front ground-floor and second-floor windows are not original. According to the 2000 inventory, the house is in good condition with many original features that have been maintained well. (1, 2, 3)
This folder contains photographs of various historic buildings in Bradford and accompanying descriptions on each. The photographs are found in the Bill & Erica Marks Archive Room and were originally compiled by George Jackson and Joe Saint. The text accompanying each photograph was researched and written in 2015-2017 by Janice Hopkins, a long-time library volunteer. She utilized many library resources in her research which are noted at the bottom of each description. See below for information on each reference.
