Dundurn Castle

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Dundurn Castle at Dundurn Park. (Summer)

Main building of Dundurn Castle (Winter)

Dundurn Castle is an 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, renovating the site to make 42 rooms of the original 72 open to the public.^[1] Macnab bought the property from Richard Beasley, one of the first settlers in Hamilton. Financial difficulties forced Beasley to sell lands at Burlington Heights (present day Dundurn Park). It was purchased by Sir Allan Napier MacNab, 1st Baronet who built Dundurn Castle on the foundations of Beasley's brick home. ^[2]

Sir Allan MacNab, later prime minister of the united Province of Canada between 1854 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.