Description of Historic Place

The Gates at East Gate, West Gate and Middle Gate, which flank three entrances to the Armstrong's Point neighbourhood in Winnipeg, are nearly identical stone and wrought-iron structures erected in 1911. The City of Winnipeg designation applies to each structure on its footprint.

Heritage Value

The Gates at East Gate, West Gate and Middle Gate are stately Classical Revival configurations that demarcate one of Winnipeg's earliest exclusive residential neighbourhoods. The landmark stone and metal structures are unique among the city's street furniture, being the most elaborate of its early roadside markers and the only surviving set that identifies a subdivision built by individual property owners instead of a real estate developer. Bounded on three sides by a meander of the Assiniboine River, Armstrong's Point first attracted the palatial homes of prominent citizens in the early 1880s and continued to fill with some of the city's finest examples of domestic architecture over the next four decades. The ornamental gates, funded by residents as a local improvement and designed and built by the city's engineering department, symbolize the area's status as a place of prestige and seclusion and also distinguish it from adjacent development by defining its non-river northern boundary and street entrances.

Source: City of Winnipeg Committee on Planning and Community Services Meeting Minutes, May 30, 1988

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the site character of the Gates at East Gate, West Gate and Middle Gate include:
- their placement along the boulevard of Cornish Avenue, with each unit flanking the roadway and sidewalk leading into Armstrong's Point at the East Gate, Middle Gate and West Gate intersections

Key elements that define the gates' heritage character and Classic Revival styling include:
- the limestone pillars and blocks crested with wrought-iron lengths, all set atop concrete foundations, with the East and West Gates identical and the Middle Gate wider than its siblings, both in point of apertures and scale
- each gate consisting of two halves, longer on the west side than the east, both composed of a large pillar nearest the street connected to a smaller set-back pillar via curved, ornamental wrought-iron railings with block bases and with a third stand-alone pillar straddling the sidewalk
- the details, including each pillar's eyebrow-curved caps, recessed panels and chamfered corners on all four faces, the wrought iron's highly modified, Greek-inspired detailing, the ornate metal light fixtures, etc.