Heritage Register
Rockland

1372 Craigdarroch Rd

Built 1925-26
Heritage-Registered

For: Samuel & Nancy Greenwood

Architect: Hubert Savage

ARCHITECTURE:

This two-storey British Arts & Crafts cottage has a complex roofline: the main roof is a steeply-pitched front-to-back gable, with small round vents in the tops of the gables, and with a deep jerkinhead at the front over the main body of the house. The right side of the gable swoops down in a cat-slide over the corner porch which leads into a side-gabled 2-storey wing. A round window in the entryhall is to the right of the inset entryway with its round and oval arches. All the main overhanging roof edges are subtly flared, the gable edges are flush with wall planes. The brick foundation, topped by a row of headers, continues up to the bottom of the banks of main floor windows; the remaining wall surfaces are clad in roughcast stucco, with half-timbering on the upper level and gable of the wing on the right side. Two chunky angled and hip-roofed bays and three small dormers on the left side create a sophisticated balance with the entryway and wing on the right. There are louvred wooden shutters on the upper front windows and a wooden lintel with crown moulding sits over the bank of six windows below. The windows are wood casements with leaded-lights. The house has a matching garage, also quite original in form.

Prominent Victoria architect Hubert Savage designed this house for the Greenwoods, for whom he had designed alterations for a house at 631 Harbinger St in 1913. Savage was English and came to Victoria 1912. His training and work in Britain was during the period of profound influence of the British Arts & Crafts movement, and much of his work reflects the principles of that movement, particularly the use of elements of the British vernacular.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1925-46: Samuel (b. London, ON 1860-1946) and Nancy Jane (b. NB 1866-1959) Greenwood came to BC in 1896 and Victoria in 1900. Samuel was a Christian Science Reader, or practitioner. Nancy left this house after his death, and later lived in Vancouver until her death.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1949-55: Madeline and A.A. Champion-Harris, Victoria manager of Price-Waterhouse Co, chartered accountants.

2006: Jim Britten and Mike Browne (1321 Rockland Av) bought the house and requested the City to put it on the Heritage Register in 2007.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Map of Victoria's Heritage Register Properties

• Rockland History

• Rockland Heritage Register

• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Three: Rockland, Burnside, Harris Green,
Hillside-Quadra, North Park & Oaklands