A heritage home next to Craigdarroch Castle has been refurbished into a castle visitors’ centre, offices, a gift shop and state-of-the-art storage space for artifacts.
Also included is a multi-purpose room for educational events and community use.
The project has freed up six rooms inside the historic castle for more exhibits, said John Hughes, executive director of the Craigdarroch Castle Museum Historical Society
That is important because it provides more venues “to tell our stories,” he said.
“So there will be more content for our visitors to experience right away while we determine what it is that we want to do fully as a permanent exhibit in those spaces.”
The castle was built by Robert Dunsmuir as a residence, completed in 1890, and has since served as a military hospital, the first location for Victoria College and home to the Victoria Conservatory of Music.
Cost of the house renovation was $2.5 million, with a $250,000 grant from the Canadian Cultural Spaces Fund financing the storage space and accompanying climate-control equipment, along with accessibility features.
“We’re very, very grateful for their support in that regard,” Hughes said.
The City of Victoria and the Rockland Neighbourhood Association were also part of the process of getting the project done, he said. The design is by Christine Lintott Architects.
He said completion comes as business at the castle is on the upswing — up about six per cent this year after attracting 160,000 visitors in 2016.
All visitors will now be directed to the new area before entering the castle.
Hughes said the flexibility created with the reorganization will allow for the creation of something most visitors ask about — a kitchen. There is currently no functioning kitchen in the castle. “So the next two, three years we’re going to be focusing on getting that kitchen put back in place,” he said. “It’ll be a Dunsmuir-era kitchen. We don’t really know what it looked like but we’re looking into that period of kitchen.”
Acting Victoria Mayor Charlayne Thornton-Joe said changes at Craigdarroch Castle will help people get to know more about the castle “and its significance to our city.”
Craigdarroch curator Bruce Davies said the storage facility is unlike anything the castle has had before. “We currently have two basement storage rooms in the castle below grade and without a really good drainage system,” he said. “We control relative humidity with heaters and dehumidifiers, that sort of thing.”
He said he especially likes the fact that the project is taking visitor services out of the castle and into a separate building. “It’s going to mean a lot to visitors to be able to walk through the front door and immediately be immersed in a historic environment. Until this centre was opened, you’d walk in, you’d see a cash register and get inundated with sounds, things that are not related to a historic house.”
