Description of Historic Place

The Cape George Heritage School Museum is a Neo-classical style schoolhouse located on RR#4 in Cape George, Antigonish County, Nova Scotia. The building and surrounding property are included in the municipal designation.

Heritage Value

The Cape George Heritage School is valued for its association with early education of students living on the South Side of Cape George, Antigonish County. The first schoolhouse in Cape George was built in 1867 where grades one through ten were taught, by one teacher. The number of students attending the school ranged from thirty to sixty. Grade eleven was only offered if a qualified teacher was available. The original schoolhouse was built by locals, who donated most of the furnishings and other supplies. In 1925 the school was deemed no longer suitable and a new school was built on the same spot as the original. The new school operated until 1963, at which time it was consolidated with the elementary school in Lakevale.

The Cape George Heritage School Museum is valued for the association with the Cape George Development Association. With the closure of the school, the Cape George Development Association was formed with its mission to “further the social, literary, educational and physical welfare of its members and the general public of the community of Cape George.” The Association fulfilled this mandate by having turned the building into a community hall, which hosted social events such as card plays and showers, and it served as headquarters for the first local Boy Scout organization in the district.

In the fall of 1999, the Cape George Development Association set out to restore the building as a heritage museum. With much dedication and hard work, the building was reopened as the Cape George Heritage School Museum in July 2001. An extension was put on one side of the building to accomodate washroom and kitchen facilities to better serve the needs of the building's users. The reopening was followed by a Cape George schoolhouse reunion which gathered over two hundred former teachers, students and other people associated with the schoolhouse over the years.

The Cape George Heritage School Museum is valued as a fine example of Neo-classical style buildings in mid-eighteenth-to-early-nineteenth century Nova Scotia. The current building was constructed in 1925, and the building’s one-room design was common among schoolhouses of the time. Its single storey is topped by a high-pitched roof. The building features a three-bay facade with a rondel window situated on the gable end. On the south facing wall are five, twelve-over-twelve windows. The Cape George Heritage School Museum is nestled in a quiet clearing set off from the main road, on the site of the original school.

Source: Registered heritage property files, no. 336, Municipality of the County of Antigonish, 285 Beech Hill Road, Antigonish, NS. B2G 2L4

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements of the Cape George Heritage School Museum include:

- high-pitched gable roof;
- rondel window on gable end;
- single storey wood frame construction and wood shingle cladding;
- rectangular plan, one-room design;
- five sash twelve-over-twelve windows on the south side of building;
- situation of the building on the original school’s site.