Historic Hamilton: Whitehern House & Garden
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Historic Hamilton: Whitehern House & Garden
Historic Hamilton will be a series of caches that serve to bring cachers to historic places in and around the City of Hamilton. These caches can be placed by anyone, and are not limited to one CO. If you know of a historic place that you would like to bring people to, feel free to add it to the series!
A quick 2 stage multi that requires you to do some simple math. Final is a camo'd lock-n-lock container that contains a log, and a few dollar store trade items. Please bring your own writing instrument to sign the log.
Stage 1 will bring you to two historical plaques BEHIND Whitehern on the wall, underneath a section that resembles a gazebo. I was experiencing quite a signal bounce when here tonight, and would appreciate if you posted your Stage 1 coords for comparison. Here is what you will need to do.
1. Note the years that the person on the left plaque and right plaque were born, and add together.
2. With this number, divide by 1000 to get x.xxx
3. Add x.xxx to the following coords to get the final:
43 11.243, 079 50.317
Whitehern is a finely crafted and well-preserved example of Hamilton's early stone architecture. Built no later than 1850 for city clerk and attorney Richard Duggan, it was purchased in 1852 by Calvin McQuesten, M.D. (1801-85), a prosperous manufacturer and philanthropist. Following his death, McQuesten's descendants occupied Whitehern until 1968 when it was bequeathed to the City of Hamilton for use as a public museum. The home's interior displays family possessions dating from three centuries and various styles of décor popular between 1860 and 1930. Despite changes dictated by time and fashion, the house and grounds retain much of their original appearance.
Whitehern was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1962 because it is considered a remarkably intact example of mid-19th-century residential architecture.
Whitehern is a superior example of the residential architecture of the mid-19th-century and is very much characteristic of large Ontario houses built during this period. Under the Honorable T.B. McQuesten, a well-known Ontario cabinet minister, some modifications were made to the house, the estate was reduced in size, and the gardens were re-designed by the landscape firm of Dunnington-Grub. The house was restored as a museum between 1968 and 1971.
Key features contributing to the heritage value of this site include:
- the prominent siting of the house on a raised terrace within landscaped grounds;
- the separation of the grounds from the streets by a low stone wall on the south, east and north sides and the surviving original materials in the east wall;
- the circulation paths through the grounds, notably the walkway on the terrace leading around the house and the original entrances from MacNab and Jackson streets;
- those elements of the house typical of mid-19th-century residential architecture, notably its rectangular, two-storey massing under a low hipped roof, its five-bay symmetrically organized façade with evenly spaced large, multi-pane sash windows, and its central entry door with a Palladian window above;
- the presence of neoclassical elements including the central, projecting frontispiece with an Ionic columned portico and pediment at roof level, and a paneled front door with sidelights;
- its dressed limestone on the north and east elevations with coursed rubble stone on the others;
- the integrity of the only slightly evolved interior layout and notable interior features including the grand central staircase with wall niches, ceiling mouldings, paneled doors, some original wall and floor coverings, woodwork, interior shutters, attic and cellar staircases, mantels, mechanical systems such as the dumb waiter, servants’ bells and hot air vents, and three gas light fixtures;
- the surviving elements of the 1848 garden including the estate wall, the walled garden and terraces;
- the archaeological evidence of an early bake oven and outbuildings, entrance path, landscape features and walls;
- the surviving elements of early varieties of plants, and planting locations as well as the original landscape designs, notably the formal heart-shaped flower bed at the front of the house.
Congratulations Foam Follower on the FTF!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Haqre syng fgbar.