Address: 602 Gorge Road East
Built: 1885
1912 householder: William Pottinger, ship's cook
Photo credit: Vickie Jackson, July 2012One of the few buildings in the Burnside Gorge neighbourhood that is listed on the City of Victoria's Heritage Register. The house was built by Maurice Humber (1834-1902), a prominent brick yard owner. In 1912, this was the home of William B. Pottinger and his wife Helen Pottinger. He was a cook and steward on the Canadian Government Steamship Newington, which tended lighthouses and remote settlements around the coast of Vancouver Island. Mrs. Pottinger had been married before and was the widow of one of Maurice Humber's sons. [More information on the Pottingers to follow....]
The following description of the building is taken from the Victoria Heitage Foundation's publication, This Old House: Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods, volume 3 [2007]:
"This rare and important 1-storey brick house was built by Maurice Humber, owner of Humber's Brick Works, located where Mayfair Shopping Centre is today. The last remaining of at least four brick houses that stood in this area, the house is built in an Italianate stye, much of the original detailing intact. The main portion has a projecting central entrance balanced by pairs of double arched sash windows in segmental-arched openings surmounted, like the entrance, with prominent keystones. The main hipped roof has a dormer above the entrance, a bracketed and panelled cornice, and matched brick chimneys, the right with its original corbelling. All front corners are emphasized with moulded brick quoining. There is an extension to the left with detailing matching the main portion as well as a slightly simpler extension to the right rear corner. The window woodwork is notable for its blind fretwork detail."