Address: 137 Gorge Road East
Built: 1885
1912 householder: Charles Ringler Thomsom, retired financier
Photo credit: Vickie Jackson, June 2012This Italianate-style house is one of the oldest houses in the Burnside Gorge neighbourhood. It was built in 1885 at a substantial cost of $9,000 and may have been designed by noted architect John Teague. Originally, this was the home of Charles and Matilda Thomson. It was called The Dingle.
Charles Ringler Thomson was born in England in 1827. He and his wife Matilda [née Midwinter) came to Victoria via California in 1862. He was a member of the colonial legislature of Vancouver Island. He was the founding secretary-treasurer of the Victoria Gas Works (1862) and invested in many other financial enterprises, including the British Columbia Loan Company. He and his wife died from acute bronchitis during the remarkably cold winter of 1916. He left a substantial estate -- cash, investments and this house -- to his sister, Janet Ringler Thomson.
The house sat on a 12-acre property and was one of several stately homes built in this part of the Burnside Gorge neighbourhood in the late 1880s and early 1890s. It is the only stately home surviving from that era. In the 1950s, a motel was built on the former Thomson property, but fortunately the house itself was preserved. It has been well-maintained and is listed on the City of Victoria's Heritage Register.
The Dingle originally faced the Gorge water; in 1990 it was elevated and turned to face the Gorge Road. For many years it was a restaurant aptly named The Dingle House. It now contains three strata-title residential units. Detailed descriptions of the architectural elements of the building, and information about its early residents, are available in volume 3 of This Old House: Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods (2007), pp. 23-24.