Ruin Porn: The Guyitt House

The old Guyitt house on the Talbot Trail was crumbling for a long time. This 1840s farmhouse on the north side of the road east of Palmyra attracted a lot of attention in its abandoned state. Folks often stopped to take a picture of it. 

Personally, I never did. I always meant to. Too late now. It's gone.

So I have to look online for pictures. Not a problem. So many people stopped to take a photo that it became one of the most photographed homes in Ontario, perhaps in Canada. And the photos were posted online:

Screenshot, June 23, 2023

The Guyitt house during daylight. The Guyitt house at dusk. The Guyitt house in sunshine. The Guyitt house on a cloudy day. The Guyitt house covered in summer foliage. The Guyitt house surrounded by snow. The Guyitt house photoshopped. You get the idea.

Why was such a popular place demolished? 

Last year the municipality of Chatham-Kent received one single complaint from a citizen concerned about the building's condition. Based on that, a building inspector was sent to look. The owner did have a "No Trespassing" sign up and a wire across the laneway. But the inspector deemed the building unsafe. (Duh. It was a shell.) There was concern that the signage wouldn't stop intruders from going in. So this week Chatham-Kent ordered the owner to have it demolished. 

The incident raises a number of questions in my mind. First, whatever happened to personal responsibility? If a prowler insists on exploring an obviously dangerous wreck, and is injured, isn't that his own fault? What part of "No Trespassing" do some people not understand? Why is it up to the municipality to save people from themselves? 

Second, why did a busybody complain about a ruin so many people admired? A recent article states an online petition dedicated to saving the building gathered over 4,000 signatures. Did the mischief maker not see all the people stopping to take photos? Did he or she have a personal grudge against the owner? While obviously beyond repair, the house was in the middle of nowhere and didn't endanger anyone else's property, as it might in the city. What real harm did it do? 

Third, why did people love this ruin? Well, that's easier. 1) It looked haunted and mysterious. 2) Nowadays Ontarians have fewer pioneer homes to photograph. Many have been unsympathetically altered or torn down. 3) People love photographing ruins. In fact, there's a movement in photography called "ruin porn," chronicling the decay of the built environment. 

Fourth, why do people like ruins at all? Anywhere? Wouldn't you think they'd make people uneasy? After all, we, like our buildings, will one day be gone. No matter how much progress we make as a society, we'll end like the Guyitt house. Or Pompeii. Or much of Detroit. Few of us like to be reminded of our own mortality.

These may be the reasons:

* Curiosity. Visitors wonder: Who lived there? Why did they leave? What would they think if they saw their home now? The past is more interesting than the present.

* Nostalgia. Ruins remind people of the "good old days." Old buildings, even in bad shape, remind us of simpler times.  

* Local architectural history. Ruins provide a record of historic building methods, local materials, how earlier inhabitants adapted to their environment. Modern buildings tend to be the same everywhere, all over the world. 

* Tourism. A ruin can be a draw to a certain area. When city dwellers go on Sunday afternoon drives, we like to see things we don't see at home in the boring suburbs. That includes ruins. 

* Aesthetics. Let's face it, there's a strange attractiveness in seeing something made by humans gradually destroyed by the ravages of time and nature. Ruins are romantic. They spark the imagination of artists, photographers, and writers. 

And my last question. I believe the Guyitt house might have attracted a few tourists to the Talbot Trail. There was certainly no other reason to visit Palmyra. (If you blinked, you'd miss it.) So when a place is as obviously admired as the Guyitt house, shouldn't the municipality have a better process in place than destruction after one complaint? 

Abandoned home near London, photographed 2022. How long will this stand?

Porch Predicament: Should Vinyl Replace Wood?

Recently an Old South home owner replaced an older front porch with new vinyl railings and posts. The reason? The original porch on the 1893 cottage at left was unsafe and the contractor recommended replacement. Unfortunately, the homeowner didn't get a heritage alteration permit before work began and he ran into trouble with the City of London.

Now, homeowners should do a little thinking before starting renovations. Like, "Hmm ... I live in an older neighbourhood. Could it be a Heritage Conservation District? Maybe I'd better find that out." In this case, the home is in the Wortley Village - Old South HCD. And there are guidelines in an HCD that are meant to preserve the neighbourhood's historic look. Bylaws are bylaws. The homeowner - and his contractor - should have known about them. Or done some research. 

The city originally offered a compromise, telling the owner he could just cap the posts in wood and replace the vinyl railings and spindles with wood and he could have his permit retroactively. To be fair, that sounds like most of the porch, and the homeowner had already spent a pile of money. So, after a bit more wrangling, City Council decided the owner could keep his new porch. 

Wood can last a long time if properly maintained. But if you're a new home owner, you may get to deal with the last owner's lack of maintenance. You may hope to repair a porch but you learn it has to be replaced. So now what? Well, you can try to replace it in wood. Problem: it's getting difficult and expensive to replace wood with wood. New wood products don't match the quality of the old growth timber our ancestors had access to back in the 1800s. 

Vinyl may last a long time, depending on what you read. And it can look a lot like wood, depending on what you buy. In this case above, the vinyl product has been made to match the original look. Not all new porches on older homes do that, as these examples from my own neighbourhood (not an HCD) indicate:

Preserving our heritage is rarely a black and white situation. There are many shades of grey in between. In the Old South case, I'm OK with the look of the vinyl porch. It would certainly fool anyone into thinking it's wood from a distance. Heck, if vinyl can be made to look like original materials, it could be an ideal replacement solution for decaying porches. Maybe the city could even encourage this.

A bigger problem is replacement windows, most of which don't look like the originals:  

But, ultimately, I want building owners to work with the city and obey its bylaws. Yes, rules can be expensive but cost should be an expected part of buying an older home, especially in a neighbourhood with character. HCDs are an important way to ensure neighbourhoods don't lose their historic charm. 

The question now is, has the city set a precedent? Will other property owners think they can pick and choose what rules they'd like to follow? And get away with it?  

London Fire Department: The First 150 Years

No. 4 Fire Hall, 807 Colborne St. 
 Built 1909 in abstract Italianate style with
simplified Tuscan Tower. Still in use. 

2023 marks the 150th anniversary of the London Fire Department. To celebrate, LFD turned its Horton Street headquarters into a museum display of historical artifacts highlighting a century and a half of firefighting.

It was on April 1, 1873 that London's first permanent, paid fire brigade was created under Chief Thomas Wastie. At first it was known as Forest City Fire Company.

Of course, fires and firefighting took place long before that. London's earliest recorded fire was in November 1832, when the Dickinson blacksmith shop was destroyed, along with all its tools. In those days, all London residents were legally required to own a bucket for use in putting out fires in homes and businesses. Not that a bucket did much good, as the Dickinsons learned. 

The earliest record of London's Volunteer Fire Company is November 16, 1841, when the town's primitive engine was used to fight a chimney blaze in Dennis O'Brien's brick block on the north side of Dundas west of Ridout. That was approximately where Museum London is today. 

In 1844 volunteers received their first hand pump fire engine. Apparently it wasn't much better than a garden sprinkler. It was certainly no match for the Great Fire of London on April 13, 1845. The disaster destroyed nearly 30 acres of property and more than 100 homes and businesses. Afterwards, the town prohibited building wooden houses in the core. While that may have helped, fire could damage brick buildings too. 

Former Fire Station No. 3, 160 Bruce St.
Built 1890-91. Used until 1975. Now apartments.

Firefighting equipment gradually improved. The first steam fire engine arrived in 1867. An aerial ladder was purchased in 1895, attached to a 75-foot horse-drawn truck requiring a tiller operator to steer the rear wheels. Once at the fire, the ladder was raised by cranks operated by six men. 

The city's first fire station was built in 1847 on the north side of what became Carling Street between Richmond and Talbot. Before that, the fire engine was stored on the property of one of the volunteers. That first station was demolished in 1880 to become the site of a new police station. In the meantime, a newer firemen's hall and engine house was built in 1853 on King Street. That was the site of the Central Fire Hall until 1957.

The Fire Department's horses were an important part of the team from 1873 on. Before that, the hand pumpers were drawn by volunteer firemen on tow ropes. Either that or a team of horses had to be commandeered from a passing farmer or merchant. The first motorized fire truck arrived in London in 1912 - but unfortunately collided with a train at the William Street crossing in 1913.  The LFD's last horse, "Doc," retired in about 1928 at age 32. 

Firefighting was always dangerous work. The earliest known firefighting fatality in London was December 17, 1855 when 22-year-old John Eskdale became trapped in the burning home of Alfred Vennor at Talbot and Horton and was burned to death. 

Another disaster was the Westman Hardware Fire of 1908. The fire engulfed the whole Cronyn block on the south side of Dundas Street between Richmond and Talbot and took the lives of Fire Chief Lawrence Clark and two others. Fire Station No. 6 at Wonderland and Oxford is named after Chief Clark. 

Today, of course, firefighters still risk their lives. But now they're more likely to die of cancer related to breathing in the chemicals that burn in our homes and businesses. Twenty-first century firemen - and women - are just as brave as ever.

Long Live The Black Walnut!

Painting of the Black Walnut, Wortley Village on a greeting card by local artist Sheri Cowan. This and other Sheri Cowan greeting cards featuring London landmarks are available at Attic Books, 240 Dundas Street, London.

Sheri is donating $20 from the sale of each of her 10"x10" archival prints to the Black Walnut Fire Fund. The prints, $70 each, are scanned and printed locally at Colour by Schubert. Anyone interested can find Sheri Cowan Art on Facebook and Instagram or email her directly at sherimcowan99@gmail.com. 

Update, August 2023: Black Walnut has revealed their plan to rebuild. Their new building will look "strikingly similar" to what was lost due to arson in April. 

The End of Elgin Hall

This is Elgin Hall - a 173-year-old pre-Confederation home in the village of Mount Elgin, Southwest Oxford, once the home of the first MP for Oxford County, Ebenezer Vining Bodwell. Bodwell was an MP in Sir John A. Macdonald’s government as well as a superintendent of the Welland Canal. 

For some reason, a company called Mount Elgin Development is building cookie-cutter homes around the site. And needs to demolish the old home to do so. Once he's demolished Elgin Hall, the developer has offered to build a new apartment structure on the site with a façade that would mimic the “style” of the old house using the existing building materials. Oh goody! Another replica like the Sir Adam Beck Manor in London (see No. 4 here). The developer also states the building is in poor shape. Of course it is. Guess who let it get that way? 

Last year a group of concerned individuals trying to save the building felt they’d made some progress towards designating the structure and selling it. But the developer refused an offer of more than a million dollars from Garth Turner, who has won awards for heritage restoration projects from Heritage Canada, among other organizations. Turner is a great-grandson of Bodwell. 

Southwest Oxford Council met yesterday, April 18, to discuss placing a heritage designation on Elgin Hall. Unfortunately, they voted 4-3 to not grant heritage designation. Despite the fact that the building meets four of the criteria required for heritage designation (only two are needed) the developer can now apply for a demolition permit and is expected to do so. 

My pictures were taken last year. I assume the deterioration is even more advanced at this point.

Attractive recessed front doorway.

Advanced deterioration to rear wing. At least the front might have been preserved. 

Note 6 over 6 wooden sash.  

Update, May 2, 2023: The developer smashed the house to bits yesterday. To add insult to injury, the demolition company chose to make jokes about the building on their website.  

Our architecture just doesn't get any respect. At the very least this home could have been deconstructed, not demolished, so that its windows, bricks, and interior fixtures could be used in another old building being restored.

The Forest City - Or Is It?

The City of London says it needs to remove big trees in Old North and some folks in the neighbourhood aren't happy about it. 

Much needed repairs to sewers and water lines have led to a need to cut down trees, mainly around Regent Street and Fraser Avenue. Originally the city meant to remove 41 trees. Then the number was reduced to 38. The trees in question have been marked with white rings. 

Old North neighbours have fought City Hall, protesting the tree removal, and signs have appeared on the marked trees. These folks aren't just treehuggers. While I don't live at Regent and Fraser, I do live in Old North and I understand that part of the charm of our neighbourhood is the mature trees. The removal of a large number could drastically change the atmosphere of the whole area. 

Of course, the City of London isn't just being mean to trees, regardless of what some Old North kiddies might think. This interview with a city staffer explains the need for infrastructure renewal and the risks involved in not removing the trees. Note: She states that London removed 579 trees in 2022 but planted 8,874, over half of which were on city streets, not parks. The situation is obviously complex. The city does plant saplings as well as pruning and chopping mature trees.  

All this makes me think about the continued use of the nickname "Forest City." Not only is it used in the above linked article, but by many London businesses, and - ahem - in the name of my own blog, because I can't resist using it either. Heck, even the city logo features a tree. Could there be some irony here? Should the Forest City really be cutting down trees? 

The earliest known use of the term was on January 24, 1856, when the London Free Press and Daily Western Advertiser referred to London as "This City of the Forest." The first organization to use the name was Forest City Lodge, No. 38, IOOF, founded in 1857.* Since then, the name has appeared everywhere - on base ball clubs, colleges, churches, festivals, a Thames River steamboat, even a cannabis shop. But why? Is it really because of our lovely forest canopy?

Most people assume the term is meant as a compliment - see here and here. Although here it says the British government coined the term to make fun of John Graves Simcoe. Personally, I think historian Orlo Miller was correct when he stated there is a "widespread misunderstanding of the origin of the city's nickname, the Forest City. It was so called not because of the tree-lined streets, but because for many years it inhabited a cleared space in the encompassing forest."** Simcoe may have wanted his "New London on the Thames" to be the provincial capital but settlers in surrounding areas were amused by the fact that there was nothing here but trees. Our nickname was a pioneer joke. 

That being the case, maybe Londoners should get over their Forest City obsession. Maybe too many residents can't see the forest for the trees? 

I'd like to see a compromise between updating infrastructure and saving Old North's ambiance. After all, we do need toilets as well as trees. An April 13 City Hall Open House suggested such an arrangement might be possible. A pilot project could potentially spare an additional 16 trees, leaving only 22 to be chopped. Let's hope London and its tree-loving residents can find some middle ground - with trees on it, of course. 

A worse change in the look of "Old" North is when earlier homes are demolished to make way for inappropriate infill. As an example, a house similar in size to the building at left was recently razed and replaced with the one on the right. There's more than one way to destroy a neighbourhood's atmosphere. 

* Dan Brock, Fragments From The Forks. London & Middlesex Historical Society, 2011 pp. 49, 52. 

** Orlo Miller, London 200: An Illustrated History. London Chamber of Commerce, 1992, p. 118. 

Those Nameless Ancestors

Old photographs provide an interesting gateway to the past, showing us the fashions, hairstyles, homes, workplaces and communities of yesteryear. My family never threw anything out, so I'm fortunate to have old albums and loose photos featuring my relatives and the places they lived. I'm even luckier to have most of them labeled so I know who and where they are with a rough idea of the date. 

As an example, here's a photo of 117 McGregor Avenue, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, identified by a relative at bottom. (It might have been neater to write on the rear but the photo can always be cropped if necessary.) I was aware that my great-grandparents, Robert and Fanny Moore, lived at this address in the Soo, but wouldn't have known this was the house if their granddaughter hadn't added the address sometime in the 1980s or 90s. Of course, nowadays you can also search an address on Google Street View, which I've done, so I know the house is still standing.

Incidentally, according to family tradition, this was the first house in the Soo to have indoor plumbing. Not surprising, since Robert was in the hardware business and would have stocked the supplies himself. 

Like many people, Robert and Fanny's daughter Helen (my grandmother) arranged photos in an album. The page below shows how she dated the pictures and identified some of the places. Her daughter added another caption in later years to identify Helen's sister, Kathleen, in the bottom centre photo.

"Doc Shepherd," by the way, appears to be a young lady in a fake beard. No doubt there's a story there, now lost.

From the other side of my family I have this nice picture of a lady posing in her backyard jungle:

The rear is labeled like this:

The original caption gives the date and address in Toronto. Years later, my other grandmother added the name of her mother-in-law, realizing that "Mother" might not be useful to everyone in years to come.

And that, of course, is the reason many older photos are unlabeled. At the time, everyone knew who the person in the picture was, so why bother identifying her? 

I work in a place where we have older photos and albums for sale. Sadly, many of the subjects are unnamed. We call them Instant Ancestors. You can make them yours if you want to. 

Here's a nice bespectacled young lady, photographed by Sanders, a studio in London, Ontario. Cooper and Sanders were in business from 1896 to 1909 at 403 Richmond Street. In later years, Edgar J. Sanders appears to have been in business on his own. That might help to date the photo, but doesn't ID the young woman.

Someone's cute toddler poses in the studio of W. Farmer, cor. King & McNab streets. The intersection suggests the photographer worked in Hamilton, Ontario at the intersection of King and what's now spelled MacNab. No one identified Junior. 

A dapper 19th-century gent, top hat in hand, phony arch and piano as backdrop. No identifying marks whatsoever, not even the photographer. 

Not sure what to do with old photos? Here are a few ideas:

• Want the photos but the album is in rough shape? Arrange them into fresh new scrapbooks, perhaps with added documents, captions and old letters for context. Pictures can be arranged chronologically, by person, or thematically eg. vacations, weddings. Make it a craft project. Kids might like to help and they'll learn about their family in the process. 
• Scan the photos into your computer so you can email them and post them online. But don't throw out the originals in case future generations have trouble accessing the format they're saved in. 
• Show off your ancestors on Ancestry or some other website. Or build your own. Long lost relatives may be delighted to find pictures they don't have themselves.
• Donate the album or photos to a local archives. Photos of your grandpa's store or grandma's Women's Institute branch might be a useful contribution to local history. 
• If you have really unusual subject material, do your homework before tossing out the pics. Not interested in your crazy uncle's albums of Great Lakes freighters? Someone into shipping history might like to have those. Your cousin took lots of photos of the drive-in theatre he worked at in the '50s? Someone out there might be researching that very thing.
• Frame some of the photos and display them in your home. Great conversation pieces.
• Make sure relatives know you have family photos. Even younger generations who think they aren't interested in long-ago dead people may catch the genealogy bug in later years. 
• Turn photos into gifts for hard-to-buy-for relatives. Pictures can be added to calendars, mugs, and T-shirts to make them more fun.

But most importantly, label your photos for future generations. If you're not sure who the people are, show them to your oldest relative. He or she will likely enjoy sharing what they know. I had my grandmother identify all the loose photos sitting in a box so I'd know who the people were.

Eventually, all of us will be no more than faces in old photographs. Let's keep our ancestors alive through their pictures, just as we hope future generations will remember us.