By Bob Sorrell
To The Haldimand Press
CALEDONIA—Anyone passing by the former Caledonia town hall recently, now the Edinburgh Square Heritage and Cultural Centre, and seeing the boarded-up windows and wall of surrounding scaffolding, might feel apprehensive about the museum’s future. However, nothing could be further from the truth as a major project is currently underway to repair and replace the almost 170-year-old landmark’s windows.
CALEDONIA—Alan Stacey of Heritage Mill works on a window. 
CALEDONIA—Scaffolding and boarding covering the museum’s front. 
CALEDONIA—Interior view of the Palladian windows across the front of the museum. 
CALEDONIA—Window removed from curator Anne Unyi’s office. 
CALEDONIA—A sample of one of the rotted window sills and the new wood replacing it. —Photos courtesy of Bob Sorrell.
And to help understand why it’s important to invest in preserving our built heritage, it often helps to know the history that brought it here.
The middle years of the 19th century were heady times for the fledgling settlement of Caledonia. The Plank Road from Hamilton to Port Dover intersected with river traffic heading down to Lake Erie and Ranald McKinnon had successfully established several mills in the community of some 300 residents. While the arrival of the railroad in 1852 would seal the fate of the struggling Grand River Navigation Company and its river traffic, it did succeed in cementing Caledonia’s transportation connections to the broader world.
It would be against this backdrop of prosperity that the decision was made to erect a handsome new town hall and jail, and so in 1857 a brick building – designed by architect John Turner in the Neo-Classical style – arose on Edinburgh Square, hosting its first council meeting January 18, 1858.
Designed to evoke the grandeur of a Roman temple, six pilasters of contrasting yellow brick appear to be supporting the roof by themselves, while in reality, this load is shared with the red brick walls that fill the five expanses between each pilaster. Into the walls were then set two rows of large, elegant windows, not only enhancing the building’s appearance but bringing light into the council chambers in those pre-electric times.
Even the finest of structures inevitably must endure the rigors of time and so, according to Alan Stacey of Heritage Mill Restorations, those graceful windows have required repair or replacement three times over the course of the building’s 166-year history. And now that time has come once again.
According to Museum Curator Anne Unyi, the last restoration work on the windows was performed approximately a decade after the counties of Haldimand and Norfolk were amalgamated in 1974 and the Caledonia town hall was made redundant. For a time it was used to house the offices of the Public Utilities Commission, but eventually it was proposed that it should be torn down and made into a parking lot. After a public outcry and a grant from the Wintario lottery fund, the building, along with its domed cupola, were fully restored.
Today, Heritage Mill of Dundas, with a budget of $315,000, is removing and replacing the glazed sashes from most of the museum’s windows while repairing water damaged wood in the sills and frames.
The target date for the completion of work is November 2023 and with some minor maintenance along the way, these newest additions should easily be able to see another century.
