Character 4 - Victoria College Student Preview

Beginning in 1921, Victoria College became the primary inhabitant of Craigdarroch Castle. In 1920, the College had been reborn as an affiliate of the University of British Columbia (UBC). Here, students could work through the first two years of their degree before completing it at UBC. Enrollment was steady throughout the 1930s with a couple hundred students attending classes.

You have come to the Castle to complete the first two years of your degree and are excited to learn in such a beautiful building. You rode the streetcar this morning along Fort Street before walking up the hill to Castle. Entering through the Garden Entrance, you feel the grooves in the marble beneath your feet, worn from years of soldiers and students arriving through these doors. Glancing up the staircase, you are astounded by the view as it winds all the way up to the fourth floor, which houses the library. Your attention is grabbed by the sandstone fireplace in the Main Hall, which reads “Welcome ever smiles and farewell goes out sighing.” You recall this quote from Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, which your English professor lectured about last week. You are snapped back to reality as chattering students flood the halls, signalling a class change.

ArtiFACT: while the Garden Entrance was not the main entrance that the Dunsmuirs used, it served as the main entrance for both veterans of Craigdarroch Military Hospital and students of Victoria College. Step into the alcove and feel the grooves on the marbled floor for yourself!

In what was once the Dunsmuirs library, you allow your mind to wander as the Registrar rustles through records, looking for yours, underneath the thistle stained glass window. Your eyes follow the intricately twisted border surrounding the thistles, the purple flowers standing out brightly against the yellow background. You turn your head to take in the bluebell window to the left as its vibrant bursts of blue twinkle back at you as the sun descends further behind it. As your eyes drift along the holly branches in the window to the right, you wonder if the choice of windows was intentional. You had heard another student mention that the man who built the Castle was Scottish and wonder to yourself if maybe these windows reminded him of home.

ArtiFACT: the Dunsmuirs would have picked the stained glass windows for the Castle out of a catalog!

Another stained glass window that you’ve noticed during classes in the drawing room is the stained glass window depicting a woman and a swan. However, during your time as a student, it may have been a boarded up hole where that window used to have been. During a rare Victoria snowfall, some of the college students had staged a snowball fight on the south lawn. A rogue snowball, possibly lobbed from the hands of a student with subpar aim, careened through the Odalisque window.

ArtiFACT: today, a reproduction of the original window dazzles visitors as they enter the drawing room.

The drawing room was the site of many school dances for the college students, with the dining room serving as a place for dancers to catch their breath. As you rub your aching feet on a bench situated in front of the opulent dining room fireplace, you ponder the mysterious door to your left. It leads out to a five foot drop to the ground below. As you sip a glass of water, you wonder what the original purpose of this “door to nowhere” might have been. Maybe a door to get onto your horse? Or maybe an exit for unwanted guests?

ArtiFACT: even today, the function of the “door to nowhere” is unknown. It is likely that this door was meant to lead to an unfinished room, but we cannot be certain of its purpose.

As you move with the throng of students between classes, you detach from the herd to take a rest on the landing. As students pass you, their chattering voices float upwards, carried throughout the building by the Castle’s phenomenal acoustics. Taking a moment to appreciate the vibrant stained glass, you rejoin the flow of traffic and move towards the second floor.

The former sitting room now serves as a common area for students to rest in between classes. Sneaking in here during a free period, you are looking for a quiet place to read your book. As you settle into a comfortable chair, the sound of students on the lawn below drifts in through the open window and distracts your relaxation. Looking around the room, you spot the window pole leaned against the wall by the radiator. Hooking its end onto the upper sash on the double-hung window, you close the window swiftly. The comfortable silence now beckons you back to your book.

ArtiFACT: this pole is original to Craigdarroch!

You and your classmates seek to leave behind a legacy at Victoria College, both through stories of your exploits and physical evidence of your presence. One such piece of evidence exists in this room, below the dogwood flower stained glass window. Victoria College boasts a number of notable alumni, amongst them the Canadian journalist, historian and author, Pierre Berton. His signature, along with the names of other students, is carved into the window woodwork in what is today restored as Jessie’s bedroom.

ArtiFACT: Pierre Berton was one of the students who ran Victoria College’s student newspaper, the Microscope.

As you ascend the stairs further in the throng of students, you habitually cast a glance at the creature wrapped around a protruding spike on the second landing. You might have learned in your studies of Celtic mythology that this creature, a salamander, is thought to be fireproof. As your eyes drift to the remarkable woodwork racing the walls, you think that it’s doing a good job of keeping the place safe from fire.

A classroom and morning assembly room, the Dunsmuir billiard room also bears the signatures of countless Victoria college students. Leaning back on the slatted bench during morning assembly, you might have spied one of your classmates carving their name into the cedar woodwork and one of their friends kept watch for eagle-eyed professors.

ArtiFACT: over 100 years later, the names of these students are still visible in the Billiard Room’s woodwork. Talk about leaving your mark!

Robert Dunsmuir Harvey did not live in Craigdarroch long before he was sent to boarding school in Ontario. A picture of him and his classmates at Trinity College can be seen on the wall to the right of the door. Robert is in the front row and furthest to the right. Instead of pursuing an academic postsecondary education like the students of Victoria College, Robert instead pursued a military career. He attended the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario and joined the Queen’s 4th Hussars upon graduation. Unfortunately, Robert passed away at age 23 when stationed in India in 1901, not much older than the Victoria College students attending school in his former home.

As a student at Victoria College in the 1920s, you might recognize the camera sitting on the art table in Effie’s bedroom. Made sometime between 1890 and 1892, this camera could have been passed down from a relative to a student at Victoria College. They might have used it to snap pictures of their friends lounging in the common room or of the rugby team dressed in tutus during a pep rally in the Billiard Room.

ArtiFACT: the donor of this camera was a student of Victoria College. The camera originally belonged to his great uncle.

Heading up to the fourth floor for your history class, you dread the climb to the top of the stairs. Finally reaching the fourth floor, you look around what was the College’s library as you catch your breath. Light streams in from a window facing the south lawn, flanked by long bookcases which stretch around the room. Taking your seat, you listen intently as History professor and librarian Sydney Pettit begins to teach.

Passing through what was once a common room for male Victoria College students, note the window facing out onto the front of the Castle. Allegedly, a couch caught on fire in this room, so the students looked to this window as their solution. Wedging the flaming couch through the frame, they pushed the couch out of the window down to the ground three stories below!

After Victoria College vacated the Castle, the Victoria School Board used the building as its administrative headquarters. A vestige of the School Board era can still be seen in the linoleum floors in the servants quarters.

ArtiFACT: The linoleum that the school board laid down turned out to be a blessing in disguise in many of the Castle’s rooms, as it protected the original flooring underneath.

Outside of the blue bedroom which now serves as a classroom, your eye catches on the circular mechanism protruding from the wall beside the painting. You may have seen this contraption in your grandmother’s house. It is a speaking tube, long disconnected by the military hospital. You wish the pipes were still connected so that you could talk to your friends on other floors.

ArtiFACT: the speaking tube system is the Victorian equivalent of an intercom. The tubes all connected down to the kitchen, where servants could hear what the Dunsmuir family members needed.

The smoking room, which now houses a space for professors to prepare their lectures, is your next stop. You urgently need to go over your History test with your professor to figure out where you went wrong. As you take a seat at the desk while the professor looks through a stack of test papers, you notice the stained glass window above his head. Unlike most of the other floral stained glass windows in the building, this one features a person. You might recognize the subject as Sir Walter Raleigh, the man credited with popularizing smoking in England. You chuckle to yourself, noting his frilly collar and wide-brimmed hat, wondering if he realized what a trend he had started.

A staff room for female staff, the breakfast room is likely not a room you would have seen during your time at the Castle. As you pass by after reviewing your test next door, you catch a glimpse inside through the open door. You can hear teachers laughing and conversing with each other as the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafts into the hallway.

As your time in the Castle ends, we invite you to reflect on the experience you had today. We hope you have enjoyed stepping into the past!