Description of Historic Place

The Old Deloraine Bank Vault, completed in ca. 1883, is a small fieldstone enclosure on a farmyard near Deloraine. The municipal designation applies to structure on its footprint.

Heritage Value

The Old Deloraine Bank Vault is the only remaining tangible link to the origins of Deloraine, one of the first communities established along the Boundary Commission Trail in western Manitoba. In 1883 A.P. and Frederick Thomas Stuart established a bank in the town and contracted local stonemason George Rickard to build the all-important vault. Deloraine was then conveniently situated in the vicinity of the area's first land titles office, but was moved eight kilometres northwest in 1886 when the railway arrived, leaving behind this stalwart thick-walled fieldstone structure.

Source: Rural Municipality of Winchester By-law No. 93-017, October 13, 1993

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the site character of the Old Deloraine Bank Vault include:
- its location on the site of Old Deloraine, eight kilometres southeast of Deloraine, with its entrance facing east

Key exterior elements that define the structure's rugged character include:
- its short stout rectangular massing with a vaulted roof and raised ends
- the thick random rubble walls, with especially large stones at the corners, and roof of fieldstones of varying size and colour well anchored in mortar
- the entrance framed in thick planking with a fieldstone lintel

Key interior elements that define the structure's heritage character and banking function include:
- the open plan with ample headroom and storage space
- the unfinished dirt floor and plaster finish on parts of the ceiling
- functional details such as the metal support rods running from side to side and anchored on the outside by stout metal braces, and the mail chute on the lower south side