Cape Breton Places & Foods

It is surprising the number of newcomers to Halifax who ask about that circular building, with the round dome for a roof, which they see a few miles before arriving in the city, if they come by the main highway or by train. It is not so surprising on the part of those whose advent to Halifax is by means of a motor road, but the more fleeting view that arrivals by train experience, does not give them equal opportunity to have the structure impress itself on their minds. Yet, many of them note it, and a number express curiosity about its unique design.

O course, it would be difficult to find a Haligonian who does not know of Prince’s Lodge, and who does not boast at least a smattering of its history. But even a number of regular residents do not know much about the building perched high on the hill overlooking Bedford Basin on one side, and with the cutting of the C.N.R. track providing a minor precipice on the other.

It would seem rather fitting for those of us who gather each Sunday morning for our visit together for Tales Told Under the Old Town Clock to take a jaunt out to Prince’s Lodge today. The same royal person who was instrumental in the erection of the historic clock on the slope of Citadel Hill likewise caused the erection of this other building. But, where the town clock stands in isolation, the other one was once part of an extensive group of buildings which formed the home of the Duke of Kent during his sojourn at this post.

True, it was separated by a little distance from the main buildings of the estate, but was a part of it. The rotunda provided the place from which the band on frequent occasions in those colorful days discoursed sweet music for the entertainment of Edward and his guests. Legend has it that the Duke utilized the Maroons, colored men who were shipped here from Jamaica, in his operations of building, and it is said that the rotunda was used as a kind of temple in which these Maroons practiced their rites.

It was after Edward’s arrival here from the West Indies in May of 1794, that this beautiful section of the Basin’s shore took on its very important role in local history. While guest of Governor Wentworth, Edward, who had been named head of the British troops in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, was taken to the Governor’s summer home these few miles from Halifax, which Wentworth had given the name of “Friar Lawrence’s Cell.”

Dr. Clara Dennis, in her much read book, Down in Nova Scotia, says “The Governor could not know that it was destined to be the setting for a real Romeo and Juliet whose romance would also end in tragedy, although unlike the tragedy of the imaginary Romeo and Juliet from whose story the Governor had taken the Friar Lawrence’s Cell as the name for his modest summer home.”

Edward found this spot, to use his own words, “better than any spot outside England,” and the obliging Governor gave over his place to his royal guest. From then on, it gained its new name of Prince’s Lodge.

Services of the leading landscape artist of the day in England were sought by the enthusiastic builder, and the natural beauty of the surroundings soon took on new glory as the development proceeded.

It is recalled that myriad pathways were directed through the woods, and each path was so designed that it formed a letter of the alphabet. Grottos abounded, Chinese pagodas were speedily erected where commanding views of the Basin could be secured.

It was fitting that such a place, and with such a history to be written in the brief period of its glory, should have a special pathway which boasted the designation of “Lover’s Lane”. What happy hours for those ill-fated lovers of history, Edward and the beautiful Julie St. Laurent who won his affections, the young widow who was an aristocrat in her own country, and who was Edward’s constant companion until expediency of the ways of state made it necessary for him to choose a royal bride. It was with Madame St. Laurent as the charming and beautiful and charming hostess that the then leaders of Halifax social world wended their way to the retreat on the Basin’s shores for the gay festivities. Many a titled visitor from other climes had his good option of Halifax greatly increased by the happy hours spent as an honored guest at the Lodge.

Let us say that we have traveled out the Bedford Road, past Mount St. Vincent, through Rockingham, beyond Birch Cove, and but a little beyond we see the rotunda, with the tracks between it and our highway. It was up the pathway from opposite the music room that we travel to reach the site of the main parts of the Lodge.

Arriving at the site, which has lost every link to the past but the rotunda, we will have to close our eyes and try to picture what it must have looked like at the end of the eighteenth century.

Records tell us that the main residence was a two-storey house of Italian style with wings at each end and the grand hall and reception room in the center. To the rear was a church-like structure said to house the offices and kitchen, for no cooking was actually done in the main building, a subterranean passage leading to that very necessary department. What rich repasts must have been carried along its artificially-lighted course?

Near enough to the house to give ready access was the library, stocked with books that were brought with great difficulty, for it is said that seven times through piracy or shipwreck Edward lost his household goods and books, including thousands of volumes at Sable Island.

It was a self sufficient little community that dwelt amid all this beauty, for it had its stables, forge, and a variety of other out-buildings to meet its requirements. There was even a barracks there for the guards over such an important person, and this structure was said to have been just a small space north of the still standing rotunda.

But even if able to get along quite well alone, it still was considered necessary to have a link with the city. It was not as simple a matter as today, with the telephone-so on a high elevation was the observatory and signal station. From it, signals were relayed through Fort Needham, at the north end of Halifax, on to Fort George on the summit of Citadel Hill.

Expense was not spared by Edward in meeting his own whims or those of his beauteous companion and it is said that when His Royal Highness finally quit this section, to meet the call of state elsewhere, he left the trifling amount of $800,000.00 in debts in Nova Scotia.

Dr. Clara Dennis tells us that behind all these scenes of pomp and gaiety dwelt a lonely hermit in his cell. He was furnished with rich food from the Lodge, but rejected all but the plainest of scraps, never leaving his cell but by nights. His grave is said to be somewhere about, at a place selected by Madame St. Laurent, and with keeping with his habits during life, he was laid to rest in the darkness of night. We could spend many moments here merely pondering what lay behind his selection of such a strange way of life.

There is another hidden grave hereabouts, according to stories that have been handed down. It is that of the Prince’s favorite charger. He would have no horse but the best, and it is said that this favorite stumbled but once, but even that was sufficient for a royal decree that he be shot.

There is still a little lake to be seen, if we travel up over the hill we find a small artificial lake. Once this was heart-shaped, made for Julie by her lover, but its shores are now unkempt. Where once stood well kept buildings. Are now but rough board structures used for picnic purpose.

For years the property was used for the center of organized outings from the city. Many of us in Halifax recall with thrilling memories the travels up the Basin in some small steamboat, to be disgorged at a wharf by the rotunda, and then to proceed on to the open parts above, where the fun of the picnic was experienced. Then at day’s end, as the shades of night started to make the eastern shore indistinct, we traveled down the slope again on tired and begrimed legs for the climaxing thrill, the boat trip back to the city.

What a contrast to those days of royal parties, with bowling on the green.-Prince’s Lodge, the name given to the section, is today counted as a residential suburb of Halifax. But a few short years ago it was the place where the more fortunate people of the city had summer homes, to be boarded up and deserted with the arrival of the colder months. Today it has a variety of attractive year-round residences, and people who make their homes there travel to and from the city in a matter of a comparatively few minutes, where once it was a journey of hours by horse-drawn vehicles, or by water up the harbor, through the narrows and to the western shore of the Basin.

There are still to be found traces of the paths leading back of the summer homes, the paths once trod by Edward and Julie, in the days before that fateful 1818, when it became advisable that Edward’s marriage to the Princess of Leningen take place. Madame St. Laurent first learned of this plan from a newspaper, and heartbroken she to a convent, death ending her career which knew both so much happiness and sadness in 1832. This romance, which is said to have included a marriage of Edward and Julie at Gibraltar, but which was not recognized by his royal father, George the Third, was doomed to unkind fate at the last.

But as a result of Edward’s union with the Princess, the British Empire was given its great Queen Victoria.

Surely a visit such as this, as we wind our way back to the shadow of the Town Clock, can give us food for much thought in the coming week, and will give added interest to the occasion when we next pass the rotunda. If you have time, and wish to hold a session with the past, so to speak, then by all means visit this historic place. See the lake, which still to a measure holds its heart-shape. Don’t delay for years, or it will be too late, for the area has been sub-divided for building lots. Up to recent years traces of the old foundation could be seen, but many of the rocks were more recently trucked away. Even the Gray house that succeeded the Prince’s Lodge, on the name site, is now a thing of the past.

Today the rotunda is owned by Mrs. Mary Karas, Morris Street, who occupies it as a summer home, and hopes to follow that practice for years to come, and finds the unusual design of the rooms of her Bedford shore home very intriguing.

At times efforts have been spoken of to gain possession of the place as a historic shrine, but so far no successful project has been launched.

And so we leave Prince’s Lodge, to return to town.