Dundurn Castle - History

History

Dundurn Castle, a Regency house, was completed in 1835 by architect Robert Charles Wetherell. MacNab purchased the property from Richard Beasley, one of Hamilton's early settlers, when financial difficulties forced Beasley to sell lands at Burlington Heights (present day Dundurn Park), and MacNab built Dundurn Castle on the foundations of Beasley's brick home. Once built, Dundurn Castle became famous all over the country for its grand entertainments. Sir John A. Macdonald and King Edward VII are among those who have been entertained there.

Sir Allan MacNab, later prime minister of the united Province of Canada between 1854 and 1856, hired architect Robert Wetherall and construction of this stately home was completed in 1835. It became the property of the City of Hamilton and, in the late 1960s, it was restored as a Centennial project. It is now designated as a National Historic Site of Canada.

A Strathspey for bagpipes was composed in honour of Dundurn Castle.

Read more about this topic:  Dundurn Castle

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    ... the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.
    Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)

    In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.
    Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)