Victoria Hall is a single storey, wooden building with a mid pitch roof and round arch windows. It is located at 149 Main Street in the Northside vicinity of Twillingate, NL. The designation is confined to the footprint of the building.
Formal Recognition Type
Registered Heritage Structure
Heritage Value
Victoria Hall was designated a Registered Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2006 due to its historic, cultural and aesthetic value.
Victoria Hall has historic and cultural value for its extended and varied uses. The lodge appears to have started its existence as a storehouse during the era when Twillingate was the major mercantile centre for the western area of Notre Dame Bay. The building was used by the merchant firm of Messrs. Waterman & Co., which was established in the 1860s, a successor of the area’s prominent Slade and Cox firms. Messrs. Waterman & Co. had a number of premises in the Twillingate-Fogo area in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and outfitted schooners for the Labrador fishery. The actual construction date and how long it was used by the Waterman firm is unknown.
In 1868-69 the local North Star Division #15, the Twillingate branch of the Sons of Temperance, a fraternal organization promoting abstinence from alcohol, purchased the property from Messrs. Waterman & Co. for 45 pounds and renovated the building for their own purposes. It was dubbed Victoria Hall in honour of the reigning monarch. From that point, the building became a community institution. The first meeting of the Temperance Society was held in the hall on March 25, 1869, and an following motion was adopted – “Any brother or sister smoking or chewing tobacco in the hall is to be fined 10 shillings.”
By 1875 the local Society of United Fishermen (SUF), then a fairly new fraternal/occupational benevolent organization founded in the Trinity Bay area was also headquartered at the site. That same year, the building also began to serve as a lodge for the local Crosby Lodge of the Loyal Orange Association, a Protestant fraternal organization. The Orangemen used the building until 1909, when they moved across the street to Alexandra Hall, and The Sons of Temperance continued to it use it as a Temperance Hall until 1917. Both organizations sold their shares to the SUF, which maintained ownership until 2003.
Over the course of more than a century, the building in its roles as a Temperance Hall, SUF Lodge and Orange Lodge provided a venue for a range of meetings, lectures and celebrations – including organizational anniversaries, wedding receptions, teas, dances, concerts, movies and politicking – establishing it as a significant place in community life and memory.
Victoria Hall has aesthetic value as a good example of a lodge of its provenance. It is a single storey, rectangular building on wooden shores with a mid-pitch roof. The main entrance is in the gable end and is accented with a fanlight and wheel window. Sizable arched windows with moulded trim are used throughout and the cladding is narrow white painted clapboard. Over the years, through its adaptation from a company storehouse to a community building and subsequent changes and repairs, elements such as the deep scrolled eaves returns, open covered porch and SUF sign have been added. The latter identifies the lodge and features the SUF initials and symbols, including the triangle representing the shape and three capes of Newfoundland, Maltese Cross, crown, Union Jack and the colours red, white and blue representing the SUF ideals of Love, Purity and Fidelity.
Source: Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador property file “Twillingate – St. Peter’s Lodge SUF #12, Victoria Hall – FPT 639″
Character Defining Elements
All those exterior features which are indicative of the building’s historic function as a fraternal lodge, including:
-building form, including mid pitch roof, dimensions and number of storeys;
-projecting eaves with scrolled eaves returns and moulded fascia;
-narrow wooden clapboard sheathing;
-wooden cornerboards;
-style, shape, mouldings, divisions and placement of all wooden windows, including wheel window and fanlights;
-placement of wooden doors;
-style, size and placement of porch; and,
-painted SUF sign on main facade.