Description of Historic Place

The Jim Goodland Upstairs Root Cellar is located at Cow Calf Hill, across from Bird Island Sanctuary in the Maberly area of the municipality of Elliston. It is built into the hillside and is the upper one of a pair of cellars known as the Twin Cellars or the Upstairs-Downstairs Cellars. The municipal heritage designation includes the footprint of the Jim Goodland Cellar along with the stone steps and path which lead to its front door.

Heritage Value

The Jim Goodland Upstairs Root Cellar has historic, architectural, aesthetic and cultural values.

The Jim Goodland Upstairs Root Cellar was built in 1915 and has historic value given its age and because it survives from a time before modern day refrigeration was the norm in rural Newfoundland. Such structures were heavily relied on for storing and preserving foodstuffs.

The Jim Goodland Upstairs Root Cellar has architectural value as a good example of vernacular, utilitarian design and functionality. Root cellars such as this were common in rural locations to store vegetables and other food. They were built to moderate temperature and humidity. This root cellar is of the type that is built into the side of a hill, the most prevalent kind in the Maberly area. It has a wooden front door made of vertical board and surrounded by exposed stone construction. It is otherwise surrounded by the natural hill and covered in sod.

The Jim Goodland Upstairs Root Cellar has aesthetic significance in the cultural landscape of Elliston. It is one structure in a larger, community-wide collection of root cellars that makes the community’s landscape remarkable. The stone steps which lead up the hill along a path to the cellar door are a noteworthy feature of this particular cellar site. Together with the Dan Goodland Downstairs Root Cellar, which was built around the same time by Jim’s brother, this cellar is part of the distinctive formation known as the Upstairs-Downstairs Cellars.

Still in use, the Jim Goodland Upstairs Root Cellar also has cultural value in Elliston. Root cellars have a connection to a subsistence economy where people farmed, hunted, fished and gathered the raw ingredients for much of their family’s own food. Once commonplace, root cellars have become symbolic of the history of subsistence in rural Newfoundland and most especially of the Town of Elliston, which declared itself Root Cellar Capital of the World in 2000.

Source: Town of Elliston Town Council Meeting Minutes of 2007/04/10

Character-Defining Elements

All those exterior elements related to the age, design and aesthetic value of the cellar and site:

-exposed stonework on front;
-type, size, material and placement of door;
-dimensions;
-the general rugged appearance, with sods;
-hillside location;
-built-in hill construction;
-stone steps and path leading to door;
-and proximity to the Dan Goodland Downstairs Root Cellar.