Description of Historic Place

The Verdun School is a simple one storey wood frame building built in 1902, with an addition and attached teacherage built in 1915, on 0.81 hectares of land in the rural district of New Norway.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the Verdun School lies in its association with the experience of a German settlement west of Duhamel and as an excellent representation of the one-room schoolhouses of rural Alberta.

German immigrants arrived in the area from the eastern United States in the 1890s, and a school for grades one to eight was built in 1902. Eventually the growth of the community required the construction of an addition and a teacherage in 1915. The school was originally named the New Berlin School but was renamed the Verdun School in 1918 because of public hostility towards Germany during World War One. The Verdun School offered classes until 1952, and was also used as a Community Hall and Church.

The Verdun School is one of the oldest one-room schoolhouses historically so important to rural Alberta, and possesses a high degree of architectural integrity.

Source: Alberta Culture and Community Spirit, Historic Resources Management Branch (File: Des 1969)

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Verdun School is embodied in such character-defining elements as:
- form, scale and massing;
- wood clapboard siding;
- medium pitch gable roof;
- corner boards, frieze boards and finished verges;
- fenestration pattern including the two-over-two single-hung windows;
- interior layout comprised of the classroom, vestibule, and teacherage;
- two original wood-fired stoves in classroom and teacherage;
- interior finishes and millwork, including wainscoting, wood floors, and lath-and-plaster walls and ceilings.