Description of Historic Place

Waterloo Loyal Orange Lodge No. 18 is a one-story structure with two towers flanking the central entrance door. Constructed in 1931, it is located on the east side of Route 80, directly across from the intersection known as 5 Roads, in New Perlican, NL. The designation is confined to the footprint of the building.

Heritage Value

Waterloo Loyal Orange Lodge No. 18 has been designated a municipal heritage site by the Town of New Perlican due to its aesthetic, historical and social values.

Waterloo Loyal Orange Lodge No. 18 has aesthetic value as a prominent landmark on New Perlican’s built landscape. It is located within the Town of New Perlican Heritage Conservation Zone, along the main highway connecting the town to others in the region, and among a cluster of historic institutional buildings including St. Matthew’s United Church, St. Matthew’s United Church Hall and St. Augustine’s Anglican Church. The scale of the Lodge makes it an enduring landmark on New Perlican’s built landscape.

Waterloo Loyal Orange Lodge No. 18 has further aesthetic value as it is a unique example of a wooden lodge building incorporating symbols associated with the Orange Lodge. While many outport Loyal Orange Lodges were built employing simple forms, Waterloo Loyal Orange Lodge No. 18 has a central doorway flanked by two towers topped with pyramidal roofs. The main façade features three multi-paned, coloured glass, rectangular windows topped with decorative, rounded arches. The central window has a pane resembling an arch and the side windows both have panes arranged around a triangle. The decorative wooden arches above the windows feature various symbols associated with the Orange Lodge, such as the five-pointed star, and the letters RSC (Royal Scarlet Chapter) and RBP (Royal Black Preceptory).

Waterloo Loyal Orange Lodge No. 18 has historic value because of its association with the Loyal Orange Association (LOA), a Protestant fraternal organization founded in Ireland in the late 1700s and active in Newfoundland by the 1860s. The LOA was first established in New Perlican in 1874, in a building located down the road from the present Lodge site. In 1888 a second Lodge was built on the same site where the present-day Lodge was built in 1931. Due to dramatic increases in membership, the Lodge had to enlarge this third building on two separate occasions. In the 1940s, at the height of membership, there were 138 LOA members in New Perlican.

Waterloo Loyal Orange Lodge No. 18 has social value to the community, given its association with the LOA and its function in providing community support through benevolent acts and in coordinating many public, social functions.

Source: Town of New Perlican Regular Town Council Meeting Motion 2009-051 June 30, 2009

Character-Defining Elements

All those exterior elements associated with the aesthetic value of the building, including:
-institutional scale and appearance of the building;
-number of storeys;
-roof type and pitch;
-towers with pyramidal roofs;
-size, style, trim and placement of windows on main façade;
-size, style, trim and placement of exterior doors;
-recessed porch on main façade;
-white and orange paint scheme on the exterior;
-symbols associated with the LOA on the exterior, and;
-dimension, location and orientation of building.