Oakville News N.M.
Coach House at Erchless
The horse has been domesticated since around 3500 BC. For 5000 years it was the primary mode of overland transport for humankind, other than walking until the steam-powered Newcomen engine was introduced in 1712. It was used primarily to pump water from tin and copper mines in Cornwall (see the streaming series Poldark).
Oakville News N.M.
Coach House - east elevation
James Watt, in 1776 introduced an improved version we now know as the steam engine. Then innovation accelerated at a blistering pace.
In 1829 George Stephenson introduced the "Rocket," considered the progenitor of the railroad as we know it today.
Only 26 years later, on December 3, 1855, "a great crowd assembled to see the first train pass through Oakville."
Transport of heavy goods, to anywhere not adjacent to the iron horse, was still accomplished with the help of the flesh and blood horse.
But innovation marched on.
The first modern automobile was built by Karl Benz in 1885. Other entrepreneurs developed the concept, including Henry Ford.
Geoff Godard
The restored box stalls
By the end of the First World War, the automobile had largely replaced the horse as the primary form of land transport other than the railroad, which it complemented.
This brings us to the Coach House at Erchless. It straddles that era of change and transformation. It was completed in 1898 by Allan S. Chisholm to replace what would have been a stable.
The new larger structure included accommodation for the stable hands that attended the Chisholm horses. They fed, groomed, cleared manure, and maintained the carriages and buggies used for, as they said in the day, "peregrinations about the Town and countryside, for pleasure or for purpose."
It was completed while the automobile was still a glint on the horizon. However, within fifteen years, the astonishing advance in technology was replacing the horse with the horseless carriage.
The Chisholms would have repurposed the coach house to accommodate the motor car by 1910 or so.
It is unknown how many horses, then horseless carriages were accommodated in the structure when the family moved on, and the estate became part of the Town of Oakville’s legacy of museums.
We know the coach house lay fallow for many decades, largely unused except for storage.
Geoff Godard
The restored floor in the stable hands quarters with original poured glass windows
In the summer of 2016, a public consultation was held to explore potential future uses of the otherwise deteriorating structure. A recommended use report followed in early 2017.
In 2019, full funding was approved by council, and after an archeological analysis the same year. The following year, design and tenders were complete, and construction started in March 2021.
The final step, re-roofing, was finished in April this year, and the Coach House is planned to open for events in May.
The result is a beautifully restored structure that reflects the building techniques and materials used 125 years ago.
Every structural component has been restored.
Where damage could not be repaired, it was replaced with millwork that matched, using salvaged wood from elsewhere dated to the same period. When possible, new work was undertaken using the same tools and techniques that would have been used in the 1890s.
Poured glass panes with all their imperfections comprise most of the windows.
The original cedar shake wall covering was painstakingly removed and replaced using steam and pressure to replicate the original curved arches.
Geoff Godard
The new roof with the manure pit in the foreground
The eves and downspouts are the existing lead-coated copper used in fine construction in years gone by.
The manure pit is rebuilt, although there is some question on how it may have been emptied since the restorers found no evidence of a door through which to remove the product of the horses.
In any case, it must have been quite pungent at times for the adjacent Oakville Club tennis courts and the even closer Lawn Bowling Club!
This painstaking work was undertaken by Clifford Restoration Limited, the project's primary contractor.
The author wishes to thank Karl and Nick, who provided access to and fascinating detail about this very welcome restoration of a long-neglected structure.
The Coach House will officially open on Sunday, May 15, 2022.
