Description of Historic Place

Victoria Park is located on and bisected by Lonsdale Avenue at Keith Road and now surrounded by a high-density residential area. This urban park is 3.9 hectares in size and includes a lawn and trees, paths, a cenotaph, a granite horse trough, and a Cold War air raid siren.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of Victoria Park is associated with its role as the first and central component of a rectilinear system of boulevards and parks known as North Vancouver's "Green Necklace." This is a grouping of parks, running from Grand Boulevard to Moody Park, that includes Victoria Park, Mahon Park and Ottawa Gardens. The "necklace" is a rough semicircular chain of green spaces threading through suburban and commercial neighbourhoods on some of the higher elevations of land in the city.

The heritage value of Victoria Park is associated with its role as an important green space in the community for nearly one hundred years. As an active civic park, Victoria Park is a landmark and important green space for residents of the North Shore. Surrounded by major north-south and east-west arterial streets, the park is a distinct and recognisable feature that divides Lower Lonsdale from Central Lonsdale. The park is further valued as witness to annual Remembrance Day ceremonies, that honour the citizens of North Vancouver who have lost their lives in war.

Victoria Park is also valued for its picturesque design. The property was donated to the City of North Vancouver by A. St. George Hamersley, Isabella Maud Hamersley, and the North Vancouver Land and Improvement Company in 1905. Local residents began the task of clearing the land, which was later completed by a private contractor. By 1910 it was laid out as a picturesque promenade park with formal paths lined with traditional European tree species, including black locusts, horse chestnuts, birch, copper beeches, English hawthorns and big leaf maples.

There are three notable structures in Victoria Park - the 1915 horse trough, the 1923 cenotaph and the Cold War air raid siren. The horse trough is located in Victoria Park West. Carved from a single piece of grey granite, it was used by horses pulling loads up Lonsdale Avenue; its location on the left side of the road is a reminder that until 1922 traffic in B.C. adhered to the British traffic tradition. The cenotaph in Victoria Park East, designed by architects Blackadder and MacKay, is an important and historic local landmark erected to honour the citizens of the City and District of North Vancouver who gave their lives during the First World War, and was later re-dedicated to commemorate the fallen of both the Boer and Second World Wars. The air raid siren is a reminder of the fear of war in North America during the Cold War, and it remains a conspicuous landmark.

Source: Heritage Planning File, City of North Vancouver

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of Victoria Park include its:
- location, bisected by Lonsdale Avenue and encircled by Keith Road on north and south sides
- setting within a high density residential neighbourhood
- open spatial qualities
- radial configuration of pathways leading from the cenotaph
- mature specimen trees and other plantings
- tall tree-lined pathways
- form, scale, massing and central location of the cenotaph
- granite horse trough
- Cold War air raid siren