Kingston, Ontario Architecture
St. Helen's Compound, King Street West, Kingston
This series of images were made in 2021 to accompany a future article on the early owners of this site, and that to the west, of Alwington House, and the progression of that ownership from the United Empire Loyalist Ellerbeck Family, to lawyer "Handsome Kit" Hagerman, to Charles Grant of Longueuil, then to his son-in-law Joseph Antisell Allen, with the final purchase of Alwington House by the Richardson Family in 1908.While some on-line sources suggest that "St. Helen's" was named after early resident Thomas Kirkpatrick's wife Helen (Fisher), I suspect that the land and that house were first owned by Charles Grant (1782 - 1858), and named after part of the Barony of Longueuil, St. Helen's, an island in the St. Lawrence River between Montreal and Longueuil, where his original seigneurial lands were held.
Stone Gables, although appearing much older, was built on the Alwington lands, I believe, gifted to builder Thomas McGinnis (1887 - 1958) by his mother-in-law, Alice (Ford) Richardson in the early-1920s after his marriage to her daughter, Elizabeth Alice Richardson (1887 - 1948) in 1914.
After the fire at Alwington House in 1958, and its subsequent demolition, the waterfront lot of Alwington and the southern part of the Stone Gables lot from the house to Lake Ontario was severed to create the present Alwington Park subdivision.
Construction of new houses there began in late 1959 and early 1960, including the large red brick house of the late Whig Standard publisher Arthur Davies in 1963, that sits just behind the historical plaque and the site of the original 1838 - 1958 Alwington House. See the articles on Alwington House, Ardath Castle, the Longueuil Family and the extensive genealogies of those families elsewhere on this site.
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| Grant Building, St. Helen's | Grant Building, St. Helen's | Grant Building, St. Helen's | Grant Building, St. Helen's |
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| Grant Building, St. Helen's | Grant Building, St. Helen's | Grant Building, St. Helen's | Grant Building, St. Helen's |
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| Grant Building, St. Helen's | Army Building, St. Helen's | Morton Brewery | Morton Brewery |
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| Grant Building, St. Helen's | Mortonwood, St. Helen's | Mortonwood, St. Helen's | Stone Gables, St. Helen's |
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| Stone Gables, St. Helen's | Stone Gables, St. Helen's | Stone Gables, St. Helen's | Stone Gables, St. Helen's |
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| Stone Gables, St. Helen's | Stone Gables, St. Helen's | Army Building, St. Helen's | Mortonwood, St. Helen's |
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| Army Building, St. Helen's | Army Building, St. Helen's | Mortonwood, St. Helen's | Mortonwood, St. Helen's |
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| Mortonwood, St. Helen's | Mortonwood, St. Helen's | Mortonwood, St. Helen's | Mortonwood, St. Helen's |
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| Mortonwood, St. Helen's | Mortonwood, St. Helen's | Mortonwood, St. Helen's | Mortonwood, St. Helen's |
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| Morton Brewery | Morton Brewery | Morton Brewery | Morton Brewery |
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| Morton Brewery | Morton Brewery | Morton Brewery | Stone Gables, St. Helen's |
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| Stone Gables, St. Helen's | Stone Gables, St. Helen's | Stone Gables, St. Helen's |
For non-profit use only; please respect my image copyright. Images © 2021, John A. Brebner