Historic Oak Bay
Historic Points of Interest
 History
is alive in Oak Bay’s architecture, in neighborhoods dotted with historic
homes and in nationally recognized historic sites. The influence of the Hudson’s
Bay Company on Oak Bay’s early development is evident in the number of streets
and parks named after influential HBC personnel. British influences have also
shaped the character of the region.
A list of heritage homes and details about each are available on the Oak
Bay Municipality website.
Other historic sites of note are described below.
John Tod House
John Tod was born in Scotland and emigrated to Canada in 1811 where he rose
to the position of chief fur trader with the Hudson's Bay Company. His house,
located at 2564 Heron Street, is western Canada’s oldest house, completed
in 1851. Tod built the house from local heavy timber, with pegged and dovetailed
construction rare to the area. Since 1929 owners of the house have complained
of ghostly activities and unexplained events. Rumours abounded of secret tunnels
dug from the house to Oak Bay coves for the purposes of smuggling contraband
– but the tunnels have yet to be discovered.
Abkhazi Garden
Abkhazi Garden was created by Prince and Princess
Abkhazi in 1946. The
Land Conservancy acquired the Garden in 2000 and opened it to the public
shortly afterward. The original house has been converted to a tearoom.
Oak Bay’s Famous Architect
Francis Mawson Rattenbury's former home is located at 1701 Beach Drive. Rattenbury,
who designed many of Victoria's famous buildings including The Empress Hotel
and the Parliament Buildings, named his residence "Lechinihl" after
it was completed in 1898 for his first wife and two children. The cost was $3,700.
The house became a private boys school in 1929.
Rattenbury was married in 1898 to Florence Eleanor Nunn but he later divorced
her to marry Alma Victoria Pakenham, a pianist who enchanted Rattenbury with
her playing in the Empress Hotel lounge. Shunned in Victoria the couple moved
to Bournemouth, England with their one son. Rattenbury was murdered in 1935
by George Percy Stoner, an 18 year old boy in the employ of the Rattenburys
who was having an affair with Alma.
Located at 599 Island Rd., Gwenllyan is a large stone house built for Dr. Jones,
western Canada's leading surgeon, by F. M Rattenbury in 1909. The original house
and stone gates have been carefully preserved.
Oak Bay Streets
Cadboro Bay Road, the longest in the municipality, takes its name from the Hudson's
Bay Company's brigantine, Cadborough, a 72-tonne, 56-foot ship - the first to
anchor in the bay in 1842. The Cadborough was lost 20 years later in a storm.
Chinese Cemetery
Oak Bay's Chinese cemetery lies near the rocky shore of Harling Point at the
end of Crescent Road. This is Canada’s oldest Chinese cemetery and the
Government of Canada designated it a National Historic Site in 1996. In 1903
the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association bought the land for the purposes
of developing a Chinese cemetery. The site was selected in part because it adheres
to the principles of feng shui. Between 1903 and 1908 many of the Chinese graves
in Ross Bay Cemetery were relocated to the new cemetery. Most Chinese in Victoria
were buried at Harling Point Cemetery until it was closed in the early 1950s.
About 400 Chinese are buried in the cemetery.
During the period when Harling Point Cemetary was in use traditional Chinese
practices called for the remains to be exhumed seven years after burial so the
bones could be cleaned and sent to home villages in China. The "bone house"
that housed the bones prior to transport no longer stands at the site. This
practice was halted in 1937 when the Sino-Japanese war broke out and in 1961
the 900 stored remains were buried in mass graves adjacent to the cemetery.
Heritage Markers
Oak Bay is home to over two-dozen markers commemorating the community's heritage
including the Chinese cemetery National historic site, the Stanley Cup memorial
in front of Oak Bay High school and the Native Plant Garden located at Beach
Drive and Margate. A self-guided tour of heritage markers is under development
as part of Oak Bay’s 2006 Centennial celebrations.
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