Sooner or later the centre dormer, lined up with the centre door, would make its appearance. It was not a new invention, but a very old feature adapted by the pioneers to bring light into the dark upstairs hall of the house in the wilderness. So why am I celebrating it at this time? This graphic may appear to some as outrageous and far fetched. How could a cottage on the Norway Road, in a remote part of Lot 1 in Prince County, ever have anything to do with a perfect example of a Roman temple on its base, or the similarly-inspired portico of our Province House? The reaction of…

In the past four or so posts I have been discussing the appearance of Georgian architecture – specifically the central plan house – on the Island, and how styles in the capital Charlottetown differed from those outside the sphere of influence of the Plaw/Smith Greek Revival style. In some detail, again and again, I described how Plaw’s pilaster and eave bracket on his 1811 Courthouse invented a new Greek Revival style that, in Charlottetown at least, completely eclipsed that which was popular on the Mainland and in New England. I touched briefly on other styles that appeared in town and across the harbour, and in isolated Springhill where we saw…