Description of Historic Place

1 Baiden Street is an 1860 two-storey frame house. It sits on a corner lot at the intersection of Baiden and Church Streets, near St John's Church in Portsmouth Village.

The property was designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act by the City of Kingston on March 24, 1980 (By-law 80-63).

Heritage Value

Baiden Street was designated for its design values. It also possesses value for its historical associations and its contribution to the context of Portsmouth Village.

The building eloquently reflects the building technology and design of the mid-nineteenth century. It is a three bay, two-storey, frame house, sitting on a rubble stone foundation on a sloped site. The central entranceway is composed of simple pilasters flanking a six panel door topped by a rectangular transom light, over which rests a wide entablature with dentils. The house is two bays deep and has a one storey lean-to porch on the back wall, likely added in the 1940s. The upper storey windows are aligned above the main floor windows, which simplified construction and respected classical rhythms. It originally had its main and upper floors heated by wood stoves and, because these required smaller flues, they permitted greater regularity in the fenestration of the east gable-end wall.

The property is a good example of the residential development in nineteenth century Portsmouth Village that grew in response to the need for housing for skilled tradesmen, many of whom worked at the nearby Kingston Penitentiary. Built in 1860 (as noted on the census of 1861), it was originally owned by Irish immigrants John and Mary Pugh, who lived there with their family. John Pugh was a cordwainer (leather-worker), who taught shoe-making at the Kingston Penitentiary. His son Thomas--to whom the property passed in 1889--was a penitentiary guard. The property left the possession of the Pughs in 1901.

Prominently sited on a corner lot at the intersection of Baiden and Church Streets, the property makes an important contribution to two streetscapes and to the overall village landscape.

Sources: City of Kingston Bylaw 80-63; City of Kingston Heritage Property File CHE-P18-051-2004.

Character-Defining Elements

Character defining elements that express the heritage value include its:
- overall size and massing reflected by the design of the house as a coherent whole, as well as its individual architectural attributes
- heavy timber frame with clapboard covering on a stone foundation, typical of construction in 19th-century Portsmouth Village
- three bay front and rear elevations, two bay side elevations and gable roof
- rubble stone foundation and its multi-paned basement windows
- central doorway with a six panel door, a pair of pilasters, a rectangular transom and wide entablature
- evenly placed fenestration with twelve panes per window, double hung sashes and wide top entablatures
- pair of symmetrically placed brick chimneys at each end of the ridge of the gable roof
- location within the streetscape of both streets intersecting at its corner lot
- location within the overall landscape of Portsmouth Village