Description of Historic Place

The Lamb/Stirling House is a one and a half storey wood frame farm house with a decorated front verandah and back porch. Located in the Murrayville area of Langley, it is surrounded by a cottage style garden and is part of a small and informal heritage character area with the neighbouring listed Harrower House.

Heritage Value

The Murrayville area is important because it is the second village centre to be created after Fort Langley. Called Murray's Corners at first, the settlement of this area began in 1874/5 when the Paul Murray family arrived and received crown grants of 160 acres on each corner of the New Westminster-Yale Road - Fort Langley Trail intersection. The name was changed to ""Murrayville"" about 1911, purportedly at the desire of the newly arrived post office, yet the distinctive five corner intersection at its centre remained known by its former name.

Built between 1905 and 1910, the Lamb/Stirling House is significant for its historic association with two prominent Langley families, its representation of a pioneer farmsite in Murrayville, and because of its architectural interest. With its decorative architectural elements and its English style garden, it has a cottage feel to it that is unusual for the area. Unlike other farmhouses that were tall and had small footprints, this house seems small in height and has a long footprint.

The house was built by David Lamb, head of a well known pioneer family. Lamb was an original resident of Vancouver prior to the 1886 fire and participated in Vancouver's first election. The Stirlings bought the house in 1922 and established a dairy farm. Members of the Stirling family continued to own and reside in the house for over 70 years and to dairy farm until the early 1980's.

The house illustrates a pioneer farm house by its simple design and although it was moved in 1992 from its original site, it still maintains the sense of a farm by the way the yard is divided with a picket fence into a cottage style house garden and an unplanted open area. The yard runs together with the yard of the Harrower House to represent a heritage farm setting. The house also shows the pioneer desire of looking prosperous and civilized through the use of decorative architectural detailing on both verandah and porch.

Of importance to the current community is that this house was conserved with the cooperation of the local governmnet, the Langley Heritage Society and a local developer, who contributed financially for its relocation. This was the first time such a partnership took place for the conservation of a historic building.

Source: Langley Centennial Museum, Heritage files.

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Lamb/Stirling House include:

Typical Farmsite Elements:
- Relation of house to site and street
- Landscape divided into two elements with a fence (a house garden and an open field-like section)
- Simple, rectangular house design
- Use of local wood building materials
- Relationship with the neighbouring Harrower House to create a small heritage character area

Architectural Interest Elements:
- Partly closed verandah running full width of front elevation
- Decorative arched ornamental trim above verandah
- Covered porch also with arched ornamental trim, located at back corner of house
- Front door flanked on right by bay window and on left by single tall and narrow window
- Placement, number and design of windows on other three elevations
- Plan is a long rectangle, giving the impression of a long and squat building rather than the more typical short and tall houses that were built at the time
- Building has an unusual cottage feel due to its decoration and its front garden
- Gabled hip roof
- Wood siding
- One chimney