Dundurn Castle

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Main building of Dundurn Castle

Dundurn Castle is a historic chateau on Dundurn Street North in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. This 18,000 square foot mansion took three years to build, ending in 1835, for a cost $175,000.00.^[1] This seventy-two room castle featured the latest conveniences of gas lighting and running water.^[1] It is currently owned by the City of Hamilton as it was purchased in 1900 for $50,000.^[1] The City has spent nearly $3 million, over 40 years, rennovating the site to make 42 rooms of the original 72 open to the public.^[1]

Sir Allan MacNab, later prime minister of the united Province of Canada between 1845 and 1856, hired architect Robert Wetherall and construction of this stately home was completed in 1835. It became the property of the City of Hamilton, and in the late 1960s, it was restored as a Centennial project. It is now designated as a National Historic Site.

It operates as a civic museum, and its grounds house other attractions. Dundurn Park and its associated green spaces are favourites for wedding portraits. The Hamilton Military Museum is housed in an outbuilding which was relocated when York Street was widened as York Boulevard in the 1970s. Another outbuilding, the Cockpit Theatre, occasionally housed outdoor events and dramas.

A large German artillery piece, booty from the First World War, was removed from the southeastern part of the park in the mid-1980s. Until about 1990, it housed an aviary which was moved to the Westdale neighbourhood. The former covered pavilion offered picnickers protection from the cold, but in the last few years a walled garden was put in its place.