Description of Historic Place

The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) station in Carleton Place is a picturesque single storey standard design station that was built in 1921-22. It stands at 110 Miguel St. on a treed plot of land east of Franktown Road and south of Miguel Street that was landscaped by the railroad when the station was constructed.

Heritage Value

The CPR station in Carleton Place was designated a heritage railway station for its historical and architectural significance, and because it is important within its community.

The former Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) station in Carleton Place was constructed in 1921-22 to the designs of the CPR Chief Engineer's office in Montreal. The contractor was M. Sullivan & Son of Arnprior. It served both freight and passenger traffic between Montreal, Ottawa, and points west. Passenger service was interrupted in the early 1970s and finally discontinued in 1989.

The Carleton Place CPR station is a tangible symbol of CPR prosperity in the post World War I period. Its construction was partly a response to the invasion of CPR’s central eastern Ontario territory by the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR), and partly the result of appointment of Carleton Place native son D'Alton Corry Coleman as CPR vice-president. Without question, the attractive new station appealed to local civic pride. The environment that developed around the station is still visible in the nearby roundhouse and railway shops, and in adjacent homes fashioned from earlier hotels, boarding houses, and tenement terraces associated with rail operations.

Architecturally, the station is one of the finer examples of the in-house work produced by the Chief Engineer's office in Montreal. Although its decoration is relatively simple, its design relies upon sophisticated massing and a fine sense of horizontal layering. The station’s deep-set windows and doors, and wide overhanging roofs give it a strong three dimensional quality. The interior continues the fine sense of proportion, finish and detail, within a simple, elegant layout. This station is the sole survivor of a group of seven CPR stations built of stone in the Upper Ottawa Valley between 1897 and 1922.

The heritage character of the former Canadian Pacific Railway station at Carleton Place is defined by the entire building exterior, by those portions of the interior that represent original layout and finishes in the lobby and ticket office area, and by its setting.

Source:
· Heritage Character Statement, Canadian Pacific Railway Station, Carleton Place, Ontario, August 1991. Heritage Assessment Report RSR-041,1991.

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements of the Canadian Pacific Railway Station, Carleton Place, Ontario include:

- its footprint which consists of two off-set rectangular forms simply massed as major and minor 1-storey cubes under medium-pitched roofs with broad flared eaves,
- its elegant proportions,
- the balance inherent in its vertical definition,
- its regularity of its deep-set apertures,
- the prominence of its roof definition from all four perspectives,
- the smooth aesthetic integration of special railway features such as a projecting telegrapher’s bay and broad eaves to provide passenger shelter,
- its restrained use of picturesque detail such as elegant brackets, milled facing, and wainscoting,
- its dressed and coursed limestone walls with contrasting darker stone for the window quoins and base with project drip course (i.e. wainscot)
- the use of milled wood for detailing, and the presence of original wood doors, windows, and storm windows,
- the excellence of the craftsmanship evident in its composition,
- the station’s platform frame construction technology,
- the composition, form and finishes of all original fabric inside the station, including those of furnishings such as the ticket counter enclosure, the benches, the express screen, and early light fixtures,
- the hierarchy of material quality used for finishing public and utilitarian spaces, in particular the simple materials of the baggage and express rooms and the more finely finished terrazzo and clay tiles, plaster, glazed brick walls, banding and decorative cornice of the public waiting room area,
- continued legibility of the station’s original functional and spatial configuration from the exterior and the interior,
- the continuity of longstanding circulation patterns,
- the overall integrity of the building’s form, plan, material, and detail.