Reg Porter's Heritage Blog

This is very much a work in progress and is likely to remain so for some time. The origins and evolution of Malpec/Prince Town are perhaps as complete as possible, thanks to advice given by Earle Lockerby.  A great deal of work on the origins and development of Georgetown remains to be done. Sadly this will not be completed for some time. I thought it advisable to insert it in this sequence so it would follow the description of the origins and evolution of Charlottetown and have its place in the larger narrative.   HOLLAND CHOOSES SITES FOR HIS THREE CAPITALS It is no surprise then when in 1765 Captain…

Before Wright’s final plan of Charlottetown was approved and his grid plan with green areas began to be carved out of the wilderness set aside by Holland, there was no set of official regulations as to how things should be done, and which facilities and features should be identified as necessary for every town. The grid plan, now of considerable antiquity, first introduced in the New World by Philip II of Spain in the 1570s, was familiar to those planning future towns in the British Colonies, and may have been a source of inspiration. In 1768 Charles Morris used a grid plan with a central square reserved for the most…

Things are never quite the way they seem to be. Take, for example, the plan of the city of Charlottetown with its four green areas, with no political function, that flank the very political central square. The reason for its present appearance should be quite simply that Governor Patterson, not liking the plan that Morris had presented in 1768, changed it. All that is true. But what was the ultimate inspiration of the change? Detail of the Charlottetown map from Meacham’s ATLAS of 1880.   The evidence available to trace the origins of green spaces set aside for the common folk encourages us to go back a long time, to…

Charlottetown, on the ground, or from the air, is a perfect and intact model of Eighteenth-Century British colonial town planning that is the pride of Prince Edward Island, and in its details, unique in the whole of Canada. In the next several posts I will discuss the origins and evolution of the city plan and explore what I believe to be its extraordinary relationship to a plan which appeared in response to the Great Fire of London in 1666, and the possible travel of this idea of green areas inserted into plans for cities in the American colonies. The very young Thomas Wright (c. 1740 – 1812) seems to be…

The Morrison House at Flat River and the Charlottetown House at 222 Sydney Street. This is the third and last post in my survey of central chimney houses on the Island. It is not a big sample – I am sure there are dozens I don’t know about – but it is a good representation of chronology, technology and evolution in style. It may happen that these posts will inspire readers to reveal more central chimney treasures with special attributes that cry out to be included. It may be that in the weeks ahead notes on more central chimney houses will be inserted into the narrative I have developed. In…