Description of Historic Place

The building at 66 Craig Street, known as Inge-Va, is situated in the town of Perth in Lanark County. The one-and-a-half-storey sandstone building was designed in the Late Georgian Neoclassical style and was constructed in 1824.

The site was donated to the Ontario Heritage Foundation, now the Ontario Heritage Trust (OHT) in 1974 and has since undergone restoration and preservation work, as well as extensive archaeological excavations.

Heritage Value

Inge-Va sits in a park-like setting in downtown Perth. The property has extensive gardens including rose bushes descended from those planted by Rev. Michael Harris who lived in the home from 1824 to 1833. Rev. Harris laid out the gardens and paths that surround the house, while the Radenhursts (subsequent tenants) planted the black locusts and built the stone wall in the 1870s. Both Ella and Cyril Inderwick created extensive gardens and a circular driveway in the 1930s.

Inge-Va is significant for its association with three prominent families in Perth. The house was constructed for Perth's first Anglican Minister, Rev. Major Michael Harris, in 1824. He left the house in 1833 and rented the property to lawyer Thomas Mabon Radenhurst, who subsequently purchased Inge-Va in 1839. In 1833 Upper Canada's last fatal duel was fought near Inge-Va between Robert Lyon and John Wilson, local law students. Lyon, who was Radenhurst's nephew and boarder, died at Inge-Va following the duel. Edith Radenhurst, widowed in 1854, continued to live in the house and between 1855 and 1873 lost three of her 10 children to tuberculosis, one to typhoid and one to drowning. Edith died in 1878, leaving son William and daughter Annie, to live in the house until 1894. Ella Inderwick and her three children moved into the house in 1894 and gave it its current name, Inge-Va. It means 'come here' in the Tamil language of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) where Ella Inderwick had lived with her husband. Ella's son Cyril, a local historian, helped establish the Perth and Lanark Historical Society, and became a founding member of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario in 1932. He lived in the house until his death in 1962. His wife Winnifred donated Inge-Va to the OHT in 1974. Through a life-tenancy agreement she remained in the house until her death in 1989.

Inge-Va is an example of a mixture of Late Georgian, Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture in Ontario. The house was built of Ontario sandstone and laid in coursed rubble. The original house consisted of a one-and-a-half storey building with a layout common throughout the Rideau Canal Corridor with a central hall plan, two front reception rooms and two rear rooms on the main floor. Upstairs there is a master bedroom, a boys' room, a girls' room and a service wing accommodating the kitchen on the main floor and a nursery and servants' rooms on the second floor. The front of the house has a Neoclassical doorway flanked by two multi-paned windows on each side. Five Adamesque fireplaces grace the main rooms of the house. The Radenhurst family enlarged the kitchen in the 1840s and built a Regency Style verandah. Due to continued illness in her family in the 1870s, Edith Radenhurst removed the verandah, and installed French doors off the dining room and off the upstairs hallway, which required the creation of a Gothic pediment above the front door. This brought more light and air into the house. Apart from a metal roof and modernization of the kitchen and bathroom, the house has remained largely unchanged. In 1994-95, funds from the Ontario Government allowed the OHT to restore the house to the 1870s period in keeping with the collection of Radenhurst furniture and the archaeological artifacts associated with the house.

Inge-Va's archaeological value is one of its most important characteristics. Excavations carried out from 1987-1994 recovered approximately 50,000 artifacts, 15,000 of which came out of an abandoned privy. This pit contained over 350 china objects and 280 glass objects. Items recovered from the privy include 10 different sets of tableware, 280 bottles, 71 wine glasses, 108 pharmaceutical and toiletry bottles, 16 chamber pots and seven toiletry sets. These items were discarded in an attempt to rid the house of tuberculosis. These objects provide a unique insight into how medical threats were addressed in the latter part of the 19th Century.

Source: OHT Easement Files

Character-Defining Elements

Character defining elements that contribute to the heritage value of Inge-Va include its:
- association with Reverend Michael Harris and his family
- association with Thomas Mabon Radenhurst and his family
- association with the Inderwick family
- association with the famous duel at Perth
- late Georgian Neoclassical architecture
- neo-Gothic front pediment with arched French doors
- symmetrical five bay facade
- neoclassical semi-elliptical transom and sidelight tracery around the front entrance
- sandstone facade laid in coursed rubble
- metal roof;
- double-hung twelve over twelve windows
- medium pitch roof with gable-ends
- vertical stone voussoirs crowning windows and doors.
- five main room fireplaces graced with Adamesque mantles
- two formal front rooms
- late Georgian staircase and railing
- window architraves
- baseboards with reverse ogee and bead moulding sitting on a quirked bead base
- cooking hearth in the rear kitchen wing
- original six-panel doors
- wide pine floorboards
- wine, beer and condiment bottles
- lead-glass tumblers
- pharmaceutical bottles
- toiletry bottles
- chamber pots
- seven toiletry sets of basins and ewers
- wine glasses
- different sets of tableware, plus pieces from 54 different patterns of china and earthenware
- extensive metal objects found including nails, tin containers, and cans
- extensive faunal specimens that were unearthed
- park-like setting in downtown Perth set well back from the street
- extensive gardens planted by generations of Inge-Va residents
- extensive array of fauna specimens found on the site
- rare plants growing in the gardens
- rose bushes which are said to be descendents of those planted by Rev. Michael Harris
- rock garden installed by Ella Inderwick
- garden wall
- large number of Black Locust trees surrounding the house
- circular drive