Provincial Registry of Heritage Property · Nova Scotia
Old Halifax Court House
Halifax, Halifax, Nova Scotia
The record
- Designation
- Provincially registered heritage property
- Type
- public
- Year built
- 1859
- Decade built
- 1850-1859
- Architect/designer
- William Thomas and Sons
- Builder
- George Laing
- Notice of registration date
- 4 August 1983
- Civic address
- 5250 Spring Garden Road
- Community
- Halifax
- County
- Halifax
- Province
- Nova Scotia
- Country
- Canada
- Coordinates
- 44.64365, -63.57374
- File number
- Prov_file_11
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford LibrariesRoe Brothers, Atlas of the Maritime Provinces (1879) / Internet ArchiveDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
5 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1763 map "Plan De La Baye De Chibouctou : nommée par les Anglois Halifax" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
Historical maps covering this location
- 1763 · Plan De La Baye De Chibouctou : nommée par les Anglois Halifax (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
- 1878 · Halifax, N.S. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
- 1879 · County of Halifax, Nova Scotia (Roe Brothers Atlas of the Maritime Provinces) (David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries)
- 1879 · County of Hants, Nova Scotia (Roe Brothers Atlas of the Maritime Provinces) (Roe Brothers, Atlas of the Maritime Provinces (1879) / Internet Archive)
- 1906 · No. 39, Halifax (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
The Province of Nova Scotia's Registered Heritage Properties dataset ↗
The Province's registration record
Reason for registration
this property's value as a landmark to the Province and for the fine architectural design featured on the building's facade.
Character-defining elements
Exterior character-defining elements of the Old Halifax Court House consist of:
- two-and-one-half storey Classical Revival building with two side wings and a rear wing;
- projecting frontispiece surmounted by plain, full pediment;
- three Palladian windows in second storey of frontispiece;
- engaged, banded columns with Tuscan capitals in second storey of frontispiece;
- carved sandstone bearded and lion’s heads in keystones of arches;
- vermiculated, rusticated sandstone walls, made of stone quarried from a Wallace, N.S. stone pit, on granite basement foundation;
- belt course between storeys and bracketing under pediment;
- quoins, plinths and decorative stone paneling;
- truncated hipped roof on main section; full hipped roof on east and west wings.
Nearby in the register
- St. Mary's Basilicachurchunder 1 mi
- Old Burying Groundcemeteryunder 1 mi
- Grafton Street Methodist Churchchurch, graveyardunder 1 mi
- Government Housepublicunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.