North Grenville is seeing some reconstruction instead of deconstruction of some of our heritage buildings. Kemptville, in particular, is enjoying some renovation projects that breathe new life into historic structures: a welcome change after losing so many fine buildings to demolition and fire. The old Ferguson House at the corner of Clothier West and Rideau Street is following in the footsteps of the Kemptville Suites building down the street. And another historic part of the town has undergone a positive transformation.
If there is a story behind every door, then the old Kemptville Town Hall is a library of fascinating and colourful tales. In its 143 years, it has served as a jail, a Fire Hall, a Town Hall, a Court House and an Archive! Today, it has been carefully restored to become the Court House Apartments, a joint housing development by the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville and the Municipality of North Grenville.
The land was bought from local residents in 1873 for the large sum of $350, as the Village of Kemptville, which separated from Oxford-on-Rideau Township in 1857, needed a Town Hall. It was the Municipal Centre for Kemptville until 1998, when Kemptville rejoined Oxford and amalgamated with South Gower to form the new North Grenville. For another seven years, it remained in use by the Municipality, until the new Municipal Centre opened.
But it was not just a century of Council meetings that took place there. The stone building also housed the offices of the Kemptville police, and the Council chamber doubled as a courtroom for inquests, hearings and trials. Judges and juries decided cases ranging from drunken behaviour to murder, and councillors, mayors and reeves debated and decided on the issues which affected the development of the Village into the Town that it became in the 1960’s.
While the political and legal minds worked away upstairs, the ground floor of the Town Hall was given over to the Fire Department, and generations of firemen (as they always were then) and fire trucks were stationed in the space subsequently used by the courts. It was not until 1968 that the Fire Department moved out of the Town Hall and into the Armoury in Riverside Park. The Department maintained a fire dock behind the Town Hall, and, around 1881, a hose tower was erected attached to the Town Hall. This was a high, wooden tower in which the old fabric fire hoses could be hung up to dry after being used at a fire. Around 1898, a bell was installed in a special decorative canopy at the top of the tower, and it was used to warn of fires until the tower was badly damaged in, ironically, a fire in 1935. The tower was demolished in 1957.
After the Municipality moved out of the building, the Ontario Provincial Courts and the Provincial Offences Court began to hold their sessions downstairs, and the North Grenville Historical Society enjoyed its use for years as the location of their Archives. But it had lost any grandeur it may once have had, presenting a rather drab appearance.
But there is a bright new look to it now, and it remains, underneath it all, a valuable heritage site, now entering into a new era as part of the continuing history of our community.
