Description of Historic Place

Northfield School, completed in 1933, is a small wood-frame structure in the Millford area of southwestern Manitoba. The municipal designation applies to the single-storey building and its grounds.

Heritage Value

Northfield School, a modest wooden facility with a characteristic row of windows on one side, replicates a school established on its site in 1882 to serve the Millford area, one of the first agricultural settlements south of the Assiniboine River near Wawanesa. The simple gable-roofed structure, built after its predecessor burned, typifies in design and materials many of the one-room schools established in rural Manitoba from the 1870s into the 1910s. This site also is valued for its connection to Nellie (Mooney) McClung, writer, suffragist, social reformer and politician, who was among the school's first pupils and in 1896 returned briefly to teach. The school closed in 1960, but the building continues to accommodate community activities.

Source: Rural Municipality of South Cypress By-law No. 1693, June 13, 1995

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Northfield School site include:
- the building's location on open level farmland in the Millford area, just north of and visible from Highway 2 and its placement, facing south, behind a tall hedge close to the grid road, with a well-defined schoolyard containing a hand pump near the front entrance and a barn to the northeast

Key elements that define the school's modest exterior character include:
- its one-storey rectangular massing under a moderately pitched, forward-facing gable roof, with a small gable-roofed porch centred on the front (south) elevation
- the narrow horizontal wood siding painted white with contrasting dark trim and the moderately wide eaves with exposed rafters
- the orderly schoolhouse-style fenestration, including a row of six tall rectangular sash windows on the east side, two small hopper openings on the upper west side and single tall rectangular windows at the front, all with plain wood surrounds and exterior storm windows
- basic details such as the east-side porch entrance with a wooden staircase, railing and single panelled door, the painted sign reading 'NORTHFIELD SD NO 264' in the porch gable end, the high concrete block basement, the brick chimney, etc.

Key interior elements that define the school's heritage character include:
- the functional one-room plan with a spacious, well-lit classroom with two cloakroom doors and a roomy basement space served by a combined enclosed stairway/classroom closet in the southeast corner
- the utilitarian materials and finishes, including the painted solid wood doors, vertical board wainscotting and wood trim throughout, the stained wood floor, the fibreboard wall and ceiling panels with wood battens, etc.
- features such as the blackboard on the classroom's south and southwest corner walls