Norval Hotel
A home in Norval – home to some famous citizens and even a brothel – was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act by the Town of Halton Hills, and saw the addition of a heritage plaque in 2015.
Known as the Forbes House property at 401 Draper St., formerly the British Hotel, was built circa 1840 and it was “remarkable” that a frame building used as a hotel (circa 1857 to 1888) is still standing.
The two-story construction with three bedrooms and a tiny kitchen retains big white wooden floor planks, plaster walls covered with wallpaper, huge Victorian-style windows and a staircase going up the side of the house. A past town report on the property said it is “an excellent example of an early village home that reflects a vernacular interpretation of three-bay Georgian-style architecture.”
Previous owners have included Major Dr. Armitage Forbes (owned it from 1948-1973) who served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in both World Wars, John Miller, who later became one of the directors of the Toronto-Guelph Plank Toll-Road and James Forster, the grandfather of renowned Canadian portraitist and Norval native, J.W.L. Forster and Robert Colgan, proprietor of The British Hotel and an innkeeper, also owned the property. It was during Colgan’s time it was believed it was a “house of ill repute” as referred to in a diary entry of a young surveyor that was included in Joan Browne Carter’s book Norval History 1820-1950.
Known as the Forbes House property at 401 Draper St., formerly the British Hotel, was built circa 1840 and it was “remarkable” that a frame building used as a hotel (circa 1857 to 1888) is still standing.
The two-story construction with three bedrooms and a tiny kitchen retains big white wooden floor planks, plaster walls covered with wallpaper, huge Victorian-style windows and a staircase going up the side of the house. A past town report on the property said it is “an excellent example of an early village home that reflects a vernacular interpretation of three-bay Georgian-style architecture.”
Previous owners have included Major Dr. Armitage Forbes (owned it from 1948-1973) who served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in both World Wars, John Miller, who later became one of the directors of the Toronto-Guelph Plank Toll-Road and James Forster, the grandfather of renowned Canadian portraitist and Norval native, J.W.L. Forster and Robert Colgan, proprietor of The British Hotel and an innkeeper, also owned the property. It was during Colgan’s time it was believed it was a “house of ill repute” as referred to in a diary entry of a young surveyor that was included in Joan Browne Carter’s book Norval History 1820-1950.