Description of Historic Place

Henry Lawrence House is a two-storey wood-frame dwelling located at 77 Queen Street in Truro, NS in a residential area in the urban core of the town. Built in 1890, it is a massive front-gabled Queen Anne style building, with a partially enclosed porch and a single storey Italianate bay window centred above the porch. The designation includes the building and surrounding property.

Heritage Value

Historical Value

Henry Lawrence House is valued for its association with the family of Henry T. Lawrence, a saddler and harness-maker who operated a business on Prince Street in the late 19th century. Lawrence was fire chief (1871-1884), Mayor of Truro (1904-1905), and represented Colchester County in the provincial Legislative Assembly.

Architectural Value

Henry Lawrence House is valued as an example of a detached urban Queen Anne Revival house, and illustrates how mass was achieved by adding height and depth to a building, rather than the more traditional towers, dormers and bays. The house is of the spindlework subtype of the Queen Anne Revival style.

Source: Planning Department, Town of Truro, file 10MNS0026

Character-Defining Elements

External elements that define the building’s heritage character consits of:

- building elements, including: basic Queen Anne form and massing; wide side eaves with brackets and decorative mouldings on the fascias; partially-enclosed porch with Late Victorian turned supports and brackets; second storey bay window with wide bracketted eaves and decorative mouldings.
- original window and door elements, including: sashed strip windows surmounted by a half-moon window in the front gable, creating a variation on the Palladian style window; narrow sashed windows with sills, some with drip mouldings.
- original building materials, including: asphalt-shingled roof; wooden clapboard cladding and trim; shingle cladding in the gables.

Elements that define the site’s heritage character include:

- placement of the house relative to its neighbours and the street.