Victorian and Edwardian, and largely protected
New Edinburgh grew as a mill village before it was part of Ottawa. Thomas MacKay bought the land in 1829 and conceived plans for the village in 1832, and it stayed separate from Ottawa until annexation in 1887. Most building happened from the 1870s until 1914, helped by milling at the adjacent Rideau Falls. Early owners favoured stone or brick, but with mills next door lumber became the preferred material, and the mills also supplied the bargeboards and brackets still seen on many houses. The district has a large number of one- and one-and-a-half-storey front-gabled houses, with double houses and short rows among them. The City recognised the area as a heritage conservation district under By-law 2001-44 (Canada’s Historic Places register), and little has been replaced, so most houses are likely to keep their original floors: board subfloor on sawn joists, now well over a century old.
