Anyone who visits the garden will notice that the plots are ringed and divided by retaining walls of varying height and some apparent age. These stone barriers, buttressed here and there by slatherings of concrete, once defined property boundries and held within them an infill of topsoil. This allowed lawns to be cultivated around erstwhile houses, atop of what was, by nature, a rugged limestone bluff. What do we know about those original properties? Let's start with Goad's insurance map for 1878 and try to picture the corner (indeed the whole block) in it's heyday.
 |
| after Goad, 1878 — sheet 44, block 271 |
Notice the wooden (grey) shed-and-stable to the upper right of the house (the stable is the larger section marked with and "X" — it's the only one on the block). Notice that this out-building is as large, or larger than the rest of the actual houses on the block. Finally, notice that most of these latter houses are built of wood, (yellow) and only a handful of brick (red). A lone stone house at Bay and Maria isn't much larger than the rear wing of #571. Oh, and one more notice — 571's outbuilding is downhill and at some remove from the "house on the hill" a version of the "upstairs/downstairs" principle. It seems the property straddled the block, backing onto Slater Street.
The previous paragraph thoroughly flogs the notion that by 1878, block 271 was a dramatic example of a prestige gradient emerging as old Upper Town spread southward, morphing into a newer, more working-class Centretown. But who was the laird of that lofty lot at the west end of later-to-be Laurier?
There's a bit of a numbering discrepancy between the maps and the directories. What Goad calls "571 Maria", A.S. Woodburn calls "575" — both in 1875 and 1884 (Goad would eventually go with 575 as well). Woodburn's intent is very clear when he lists the same resident in both years at 575, followed immediately by "Concession st intersects" — it's the house on the corner, occupied, he tells us, by "Clemow Francis, coal mercht etc".
 |
| Francis Clemow, 1821-1902 |
Two of the Glebe’s most fascinating streets surely are Clemow and Powell avenues, because they are not just exceptionally good-looking (wide boulevards, grand old homes, plenty of trees) but also because they exude an aura of influence and prestige. Even without knowing anything about the men and women behind these two names, one can easily surmise that they were part of Ottawa’s elite. But reading about Francis Clemow, the family patriarch, I find that counting him among Ottawa’s early “in” crowd is almost an understatement: the man was such a wheeler and dealer, so “firmly entrenched in the sinecures of the city corporation,” as John Taylor observed in his illustrated history of Ottawa, that it seems as though he had a hand in a great many of the city’s affairs...Please read Ms. Thomas's account of Clemow's wheeling and dealing here. Interestingly, she states — "In 1847, Francis Clemow married Margaret Powell of the Perth Powells [...] and thus the association of Clemow and Powell began. The couple lived in a mansion, “Hill and Dale”, on Maria Street (now Laurier Avenue)." And if "Hill and Dale" doesn't perfectly describe the hilltop house at Concession and Maria, with a "dale" behind it, running down toward Slater Street, well I don't know what does.
Although the couple owned property in the Glebe, the Might Directory for 1901 shows the Clemows living at Hill and Dale until at least 1901. Francis would die in 1902 and Margaret in 1907. The 1909 Might Directory lists their daughter, Miss Adelaide "Ada" H. Clemow, living alone in the house (by that time a Laurier W. address.) She and her cousin would eventually develop the Clemow/Powell Glebe property. She died in 1931, still at the family mansion. If you're curious, a discussion of the Glebe land (PDF, City of Ottawa) can be viewed here.
 |
| Miss Ada Clemow |
* * *
Through the late 19th century and into the 20th, Centretown Ottawa continued to grow around the Clemow house. Here is Goad's take on block 271 from his 1912 reprint series, and OMG SINCE WHEN IS THIS AN INDUSTRIAL PARK???
 |
| after Goad 1912, sheet 44 |
Check out the generous lot at 553 Laurier, the one with the little wooden house and the stable out back. This property will eventually become the lower level of the NGH garden.
For whatever reason(s), Goad shunted the Clemow house onto the adjoining sheet for this series. Map 46 picks up from where #44 left off — here's a detail...
We can see 575 Laurier, solid, stony and symmetrical, with a wooden conservatory running off its west side — perfect for tea or evening drinks in summer. We also notice that the stable/coach-house/garage has been reconfigured slightly over the decades. Did someone spring for a motor car along way? If you enlarge the image and squint, you can see a six-foot high stone wall separating the estate from the rest of the block. And an eight-foot high stone wall along Slater. If you're curious as to where these walls met, stand between the two Victorian brick houses at 467 and 475 Slater and look directly across the street facing the graffiti wall.
Speaking of which — notice how Goad has drawn the Nanny Goat escarpment — on the west side of Bronson (north of the red brick "Fleck House") but not on the east behind the Clemow residence. He seems to be indicating a gentler slope at Hill and Dale, not the severe drop we now see at the Techwall graffiti/retaining concrete structure.
* * *
A parting shot from 1965 shows Hill and Dale with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. I've outlined the land that would become the Nanny Goat Hill Community Garden in green.
 |
| via geoOttawa |
By way of a post-script, notice the apartment tower casting shade across Laurier near the bottom of the photo. Those are the Stonecliffe Apartments at 175 Bronson Avenue. Their lot was once the home of Ottawa businessman and mayor, C.T. Bate — a lost exemplar of Ottawa's historic "Bate Houses." Again, a story for another time.
 |
| 584 Maria (in blue), across the street from the Clemows — Goad, 1878 |
