Description of Historic Place

The Lake Hill Pumping Station is a single storey brick industrial building with a gabled roof, rectangular on plan with the gable end facing the street. The building is located on the west side of Quadra Street, just south of McKenzie Avenue, in an area of other commercial buildings.

Heritage Value

The Lake Hill Pumping Station is a rare example of an early industrial building in Saanich, and is valued as an important physical manifestation of the district's industrial history. Utilitarian in form, the building makes a clear statement of its original purpose. Built in 1900, the structure housed equipment necessary to pump water from Elk Lake to the City of Victoria as part of the city's water system.

Additionally, this site represents the history of the development of agriculture in Saanich. By 1912, a new pumping station had been built, and this building was converted for use for industrial functions such as jam production and canning, providing a market for the fruit produced by local farmers. The Growers Wine Company, which founded the loganberry wine industry on Vancouver Island with government assistance, provided a commercial use for the abundant local supply of loganberries. This was considered the salvation of local growers, particularly during the Depression when the company purchased local produce as well as provided employment. After 1954, the Growers Wine Company used these premises as a cooper's shop and warehouse for their winemaking facility next door. Since 1978, the building has been a restaurant in the Keg chain, demonstrating the adaptable nature of utilitarian industrial structures.

Source: Heritage Planning Files, District of Saanich

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Lake Hill Pumping Station include its:
- location on the west side of Quadra Street in line with the route of the old Elk Lake water supply line, orientated with the gabled end of the structure facing Quadra Street
- industrial form, scale and massing as expressed by its single open internal space, large scale openings and oversize articulation of structural elements
- rugged and utilitarian industrial vernacular construction
- structural brick walls with decorative corbelling, segmental-arch window heads with triple-ringed arches, and brick arcading, with continuous parged drip moulding embracing the three windows on the Quadra Street facade
- saddle-back roof with stretcher courses in the parapet of the gable ends and metal-clad masonry coping on the parapet at the gable ends and a central interior chimney
- heavy timber frame interior construction, exposed in the open plan interior with timber columns and truss roof system