Description du lieu patrimonial

Shakespear House dates from the Loyalist settling of Shelburne and is located in the heart of the original town plot. With a symmetrical, five bay, unadorned façade, and salt box style, the house provides and excellent reminder of the town’s Loyalist history. Provincial designation applies to the house and lot.

Valeur patrimoniale

Shakespear House is valued for its age, architecture and construction materials.

Shakespear House is thought to have been built in 1784 by Stephen Shakespear. Shakespear was commissioned in 1783 in New York by Sir Guy Carleton to lead a company of Loyalists, who were fleeing the American Revolution, to settle in Port Roseway, now Shelburne. This undertaking was organized by several hundred Loyalists who joined together to form the Port Roseway Associates, aimed as settling in Nova Scotia. Shakespear and nine others chosen by Carleton were given 500 acre lots along the Port Roseway River and a one acre lot in the town plot. By February 1784 over one thousand houses were built in the area, and over eight hundred were 'log houses.' These were pieces of timber framed together at the ends and sometimes covered with clapboard. Shakespear operated a store from this house for a short time, until it was sold to David Shakespear.

The original form of the house was a plain, rectangle with a gabled roof set flush with the ground on a granite foundation. An extension was added to the rear giving it a salt box appearance as the roof line was altered. It has a five bay symmetrical façade with some minor dentil decoration on the front façade. The original large stone chimney remains.

Source: Provincial Heritage Property Files, no. 109

Éléments caractéristiques

Character-defining elements of Shakespear House include:

- all evidence of original log construction;
- original stone chimney;
- wooden clapboard siding;
- location in original town plot;
- cedar shingles on roof;
- stone hearths;
- five bay symmetrical façade;
- simple façade, no decoration with exception of dentils.