Description of Historic Place

The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) station in L’Annonciation is in a prominent location on rue Principale in a public park backing onto the River Rouge. It is an attractive one storey picturesque building with ornate brackets.

Heritage Value

L’Annonciation’s CPR station was designated a heritage railway station for its historical and environmental qualities, and because it is an excellent and rare Quebec example of CPR standard station plan No. 4.

Built in 1903 according to plans prepared and provided by the CPR, the L’Annonciation station was nonetheless owned by a CPR subsidiary, the Northern Colonization Railway. Before 1909, the CPR built several stations along this line which was later to become its Laurentide route. As elements of rail transport infrastructure, each of them became a conduit for colonization of the north shore of the St. Lawrence River.

The small one storey hipped roof form of CPR Standard Station Plan No. 4 was a common sight in small towns across Canada. In Quebec, however, it is rare to find an example as well preserved as this one with its separate waiting room, baggage room and office furnished to its 1903 period of origin.

Heritage value of this station resides in the form and elements it portrays that are characteristic of CPR Standard Plan No. 4: namely, its recessed hipped roof with overhanging eaves and decorative brackets, its telegrapher’s bay, aperture disposition and its exterior reflection of its interior functional disposition. The prominent site of this CPR station on Annonciation’s main street is also typical of such small town stations.

Source:
·Heritage Character Statement, Canadian Pacific Railway Station, L’Annonciation, Quebec, May 1991. Heritage Assessment Report RSR-023, 1990.

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements of the L’Annonciation Canadian Pacific Railway Station include:
- the rectangular footprint, 1 storey massing, and medium-pitched recessed hipped roof of the station with track-side corner eave projections,
- its small scale and pleasing lines,
- its balanced vertical and horizontal proportions,
- the rhythmic placement of its apertures and brackets,
- the smooth aesthetic integration of special railway features such as a projecting telegrapher’s bay and broad eaves with corner projections to provide passenger shelter,
- its simple picturesque details: prominent roof, multi-paned paired windows, decorative brackets, broad eaves, wainscott line,
- its simple, cost effective original materials: wood siding, horizontal siding set as wainscott, wood bracket and feature details, wood windows, doors and trim,
- its station’s platform frame construction technology,
- all original fabric, furnishing and finishes inside the station, in particular the surviving ticket wicket, and slight contrasts in material quality and application that indicate a distinction in the original finishes of public and service areas,
- continued legibility of the station’s original functional configuration on both the interior and the exterior of the building,
- continued legibility of its interior spatial volumes,
- continued use of longstanding circulation and access patterns,
- the overall integrity of the building’s form, plan, material, and detail.