Description of Historic Place

Willow Plain School, a wooden one-room schoolhouse built in 1911, is located along a rural highway that also forms the main street in the small village of Sarto, an early Ukrainian settlement in southeastern Manitoba. Situated across the road from St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church, the school occupies property that also contains an adjacent seniors' centre and large hall. The municipal designation of the site applies to the school building only.

Heritage Value

Willow Plain School is a typical example of the one-room multigrade schools that served most small communities in Manitoba around the turn of the twentieth century. Based on one of the standardized provincial designs available after 1903, the school recalls the simple forms, construction materials and interior layout that characterized this building type. The school had close ties with the nearby St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church, where most of the students also attended church. Saved through community efforts, the structure is the only remaining historic school on its original site in the Sarto area.

Source: Rural Municipality of Hanover By-law No. 2083, December 17, 2003

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the site include:
- orientation of the school on an east-west axis, with a south-facing main entrance and visual connection to St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church, located south of the school across the highway

Key elements that define the school's external heritage character include:
- its simple box-like form with high-pitched gable roof, buff-coloured brick chimney and horizontal wooden siding painted white
- an evenly spaced row of three windows on the south side and five windows on the north side, and single windows located in the upper gable ends

Key internal elements that define the heritage character of the building include:
- the well-lit classroom, with original door and window openings, tongue-and-groove board siding, original light fixtures, blackboards on the east and south walls and original furnishings, including the teacher's oak desk and children's desks
- separate boys' and girls' cloakrooms at the west end, with horizontal board siding stained dark on the lower portion and painted white on the upper half; the single opening between the cloak rooms and the classroom