Description of Historic Place

The high one-storey Boyne School, a wood-frame structure built in 1930, occupies a site amid flat open fields near Carman. The municipal designation applies to the school and its large site.

Heritage Value

The one-room Boyne School, with its domestic proportions, hipped roof and raised basement, is a good example of one of Manitoba's most popular standardized provincial school designs available in the post-World War I period. Adapted from a 1912 cottage-style scheme, the school incorporates features that constitute a comfortable well-lit space, such as an obligatory bank of windows along one side of the classroom with transoms for air circulation, cloakrooms lit by side windows and a front storm porch. Saved through community efforts and used for social events, this designated place also is one of the few surviving examples in Manitoba of an intact country school site, complete with a fenced playground, flagpole and stable.

Source: Rural Municipality of Dufferin By-law No. 1563, August 4, 1988

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the intact Boyne School site include:
- its location four kilometres east of Carman on the south side of Highway 3 and north-south alignment, facing north, on extensive grassed grounds with flagpole and stable

Key exterior elements that define the building's standardized design and domestic proportions include:
- its basic one-storey rectangular form with a medium-pitched hip roof on a raised concrete basement
- the compact front (north) entrance porch with a bracketed gable roof, small side windows, etc.
- the bank of six tall single-hung sash windows on the east side, all in plain wooden surrounds
- the additional fenestration, including two small hopper transom windows on the west elevation
- the basic materials and finishes, including the wood-frame construction with exposed rafter ends under the eaves, horizontal board siding painted traditional white, cedar shingles, a broad brick chimney with concrete coping, metal eavestroughing, downspouts and lightning rods, etc.
- additional features such as the wooden deck, railing, stairs and door on the west side, bracketed shed roof over the paired windows on the east elevation, and the name 'BOYNE SCHOOL NO 21, 1878' painted above the entrance

Key internal elements that define the heritage character of the building include:
- the small vestibule leading to the classroom and basement staircases
- the classroom's largely unaltered and well-lit open space with a high ceiling and two single doors to the cloakrooms in the north wall
- the straightforward materials and finishes such as the hardwood flooring, plain wood trim, board-and-batten walls in the cloakrooms and wainscotting in the vestibule, simple staircase balustrades, a plain wooden handrail integrated into the wainscotting on one side of the classroom staircase, etc.
- other features and furnishings such as the built-in library and science cupboards, the blackboards and the teacher's desk