Description of Historic Place
The Erinside School and Teacherage, built in 1914, are adjacent one-storey wood-frame structures in a rural setting in the Erinview area. The municipal designation applies to the school, the teacherage and the grounds they occupy.
Heritage Value
The Erinside School and Teacherage is an important Manitoba site recalling not just the modesty that attended the experience of learning in a rural situation, but through the teacherage the lives, typically of young women, who lived and taught in isolated, often lonely situations. Although it was once common for rural districts to provide living accommodation to attract teachers, few such dwellings have survived, and even fewer in tandem with their schools on an intact rural site. Both the house and adjacent one-room school display the durable features that enabled them to address learning and shelter requirements in a practical, affordable manner. The school is typical of the post-1900 facilities constructed from model plans provided by the provincial government to ensure rural students were taught in environments that met the era's lighting, ventilation, heating and other standards.
Source: Rural Municipality of Woodlands By-law No. 2426/01, March 13, 2001
Character-Defining Elements
Key elements that define the heritage character of the Erinside School and Teacherage site include:
- the complex's location on grassed and treed grounds, set back from a grid road in the Erinview area, with the school and teacherage in close proximity to each other
Key elements that define the complex's unpretentious vernacular architecture include:
- the school and teacherage unified by the use of shared materials and elements, including symmetrical one-storey massing, horizontal wood siding, gable roofs with cedar shingles, double-hung openings with simple casings and sills painted to contrast with the siding, brick chimneys, etc.
- the elongated rectangular expanse of the school, with the front facade featuring a centred door flanked by windows and a basic ribbon board reading 'ERINSIDE SCHOOL', the west wall containing a bank of transomed windows, the east side with upper hopper windows, decorative fascias, simple metal finials on the apex of each gable end, etc.
- the teacherage's domestic appearance and basic massing, including a centred front porch with fish-scale detailing and a gable roof that intersects the main one, multi-paned rectangular windows throughout, etc.
Key elements that define the complex's simple interior layouts, finishes and details include:
- the school's formal plan composed of a small vestibule/boys' cloakroom and a separate girls' cloakroom, all set behind a plank pony wall dividing the area from the unobstructed classroom, with plank ceilings, floors and doors throughout and practical details and finishes, including some intact blackboards, wainscotting, simple moulding, etc.
- the formal plan of the teacherage composed of private and common living areas and including some plank flooring, wood moulding, etc.