Description of Historic Place

Dashwood Manor is a two-and-a-half-storey Arts and Crafts Tudor Revival mansion located on Victoria's Dallas Road waterfront at the corner of Dallas Road and Cook Street, across from Beacon Hill Park.

Heritage Value

Dashwood Manor, built in 1912, is valued for its architecture, its architects, the occupation of its original owner, and how its conversion speaks to the more recent emergence of Victoria as a tourist destination.

Dashwood Manor is an outstanding example of an Arts and Crafts Tudor Revival mansion. Designed by H. T. Whitehead and E. Stanley Mitton in the Tudor Revival style, this building is valued for its stone foundations, half-timbering, cedar shingles, bay windows, prominent entrances, and dormer windows. During the land boom of 1907-1913, much of the former Fairfield Farm estate, which is now the Fairfield neighbourhood, was surveyed into building lots for middle-class housing. The homes built in the vicinity of Dallas Road tended to be better built and more costly than those further to the east. No expense was spared with 'slashed grain in the hall, dining room in oak, drawing room ... richly plastered cornice and ceilings.' The foundation and lower floor have walls of solid granite and the interior featured a built-in electric vacuum system.

The use of the British Arts and Crafts Tudor Revival Style by architects Whitehead and Mitton reminds us of the origins of many Edwardian immigrants. Herbert Thomas Whitehead was born in England and arrived in Victoria in 1911, where he opened an architectural office with E. Stanley Mitton, who was already well known in British Columbia for his designs in Shaughnessy, the newly created subdivision in Vancouver. The partnership generally produced houses in the Arts and Crafts style with English precedents.

The original owner was Arthur Lineham, manager of the BC Light and Power Company and later a realtor in partnership with Ronald Grant (Grant and Lineham). He served as a City of Victoria alderman in 1921. Following a chequered career as rental accommodation, the mansion was converted to a Bed and Breakfast establishment in 1978.


Source: City of Victoria Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage character of Dashwood Manor is defined by the following elements:
- characteristics of the Tudor Revival style, including granite foundation and first floor, cedar shingles on upper levels, recessed entry front porch, gabled and bell-cast roof with hipped eaves, stucco and half-timbered upper exterior, bay windows, upper balcony, shed dormers, and brackets under eaves
- location on waterfront
- location across from Beacon Hill Park
- set back from lot line