The Court House, Nelson, designed by English immigrant Francis Mawson Rattenbury (1867-1935), working in collaboration with a local architect, Alexander Carrie, and W. G. Gillett, the Nelson mayor from 1906 to 1907, who acted during the construction as Clerk of the Works and the primary contractor. It was commissioned by the provincial government in 1902, and opened 1 January 1908. Built of local stone with slate for the roof from the west coast, British Colombian Douglas Fir for the interior woodwork, and using Kootenay marble quarried on Gillett's own site in nearby Kaslo, the building stands on 320 Ward Street, in the West Kootenays of the British Columbia interior. It still dominates the lower part of the town on the south shore of Kootenay Lake.
The rusticated stone building of four storeys has an ornate and stately facade which combines the Chateau and Richardsonian Romanesque styles which Rattenbury employed elsewhere. But although the grand arched Romanesque front immediately calls to mind Rattenbury's ambitious design for the Parliament Buildings in Victoria, B. C., it is of a much smaller scale. As Terry Reksen notes, here Rattenbury was aiming for "beauty instead of imposing grandeur" (95), rather as he was in Victoria's Craigdorrach Castle (1889). This effect he achieved through such elements as the pitched slate roof, ornate corner tower, and northern Renaissance windows and mediaeval detailing. In this way, working with Carrie and Gillett, he succeeded in creating an attractive edifice worthy of its judicial nature, and conveying the majesty and enduring quality of the rule of law.
The court house is one of three Rattenbury buildings here, the others being the Bank of Montreal and the Cold Storage Depot. It was entered into Canada's Registry of Historic Places on 16 December 1985. Testimonies to its importance come from several sources, as follows:
The new Court House is by long odds the handsomest building in Nelson; it is one to which the people of the city can point with pride." [The Nelson Daily News, 29 November 1908]
Nelson's Court House is an historic landmark as well as active hall of justice. Few Nelson buildings have been a subject for photographs as often, or have inspired such last community pride. [Nanaimo Heritage Register]
A building long admired for its fine design, The Nelson Courthouse is valued as the city's most significant architectural landmark, and as a representation of the esteemed judicial and administrative role that Nelson has held since its earliest years as a community. The court house stands as a testament to beauty and strength in a community that takes pride in its living history. [Commemorative plaque across the street]
Another account of the building remarks on the various architectural references that combine to produce its air of historical significance and authority:
If the Vancouver Courthouse symbolized the Classical foundation of modern jurisprudence, the one designed in 1903 at Nelson represented its medieval development. . . . Yet, though it appears as much a baronial hall as a seat of law, the relationship between the plan and external design is more exact. . . . The basement, containing storerooms and the heating equipment, is surrounded by lower ground not unlike a moat and entered across a stone "drawbridge." The broad arched entrance portal is framed by thin windows apparently inspired by thew slit windows of Norman castles and surmounted by a Jacobean oriel and curved gable. . . . . The dramatic eclecticism of these components is moderated on the plainer right wing, accommodating the government offices, police, jury, and witness rooms. The the medievalism of the main front is, nevertheless, continued in the composition of the remainder. The gabled entrance extends inwards to form a nave, as it were, of a church with clerestorey lighting for the Assize Court and its gallery; continuing the analogy of a church, the three-storey section behind the tower, containing further offices, corresponds to an aisle, while the pitched bay over the judges' chambers simulates a transept. [Barrett and Liscombe, 174-175]
Left to right: Detail of the Romanesque façade and portico; and another exterior shot taken before the ivy was removed (photo credit: Gary Linn, District Registrar).
Although they are now gone, if one examines the facade closely one may yet see traces of the climbing vines of Virginia Creeper and Boston Ivy that (as shown above right) once adorned the whole exterior.
The courthouse has maintained its distinctive presence in modern times. British Columbians took note of it in the 1960s, when the leaders of the Doukhobor sect known as "The Sons of Freedom" stood trial there for arson. The structure came under threat of sabotage: on 4 February 1962, David "Buster" Wigg foiled a plot to firebomb the stately courthouse in furtherance of the Sons' protests against provincial government education policies, beginning in November 1961 (further incidents included the bombing of a railway bridge near Nelson). With his bare hands, Wigg snuffed out two bombs and threw them out of the smoking courthouse, then scooped up another smouldering firebomb with a shovel, and hurled it into Ward Street just as the Nelson Fire Brigade arrived.
Photographs (apart from the one by Gary Linn) by the author. [You may use them without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Barrett, Anthony A., and Rhodri Windsor Liscombe. "Six: Further Afield, 1906-1907." Francis Rattenbury and British Columbia: Architecture and Challenge in the Imperial Age. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1983. 168-216.
Elliot, David R. "Rattenbury, Francis Mawson." Canadian Encyclopedia. Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988. Vol. 3: 1828-29.
Liscombe, Rhodri Windsor. "Rattenbury, Francis Mawson." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Posted 20 May 2008. Web. Accessed 25 April 2023.
"Nelson Courthouse." Canada's Historic Places. (City of Nelson). "Nelson Courthouse, 320 Ward Street, Nelson, British Columbia, Canada." Web. Accessed 17 June 2024.
"Nelson Courthouse Hero's Bravery Commemorated." Provincial Court of British Columbia. Posted 26 May 2015.
Reksen, Terry, Rattenbury. Victoria, B. C.: Sono Nis Press, 1978.
Created 21 June 2024