Topic: Halifax
The Brunswick and Cogwell Streets area of Halifax, as shown on an 1894 map of the city.
New Barracks for Halifax
The Quebec Saturday Budget, 21 June 1902
The 1928 map of Halifax shows the changes in construction in the Glacis Barracks and Churchfield areas.
The Imperial Government have decided to erect new barracks and construct other important works in and around Halifax this summer. A new brick barracks will be built also, married soldiers' barracks, these latter will be built on the site known as Churchfield which adjoins the Garrison chapel on Brunswick street.
The building will be built of solid brick, two stories in height and faced with stone. A gymnasium which will be one of the finest in Canada, will also be erected on the site of the present gymnasium on Cogswell street, opposite the Station hospital. The quarters at present occupied by the officers of the Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers will be razed and new and more commodious buildings erected. The new quarters will contain large mess rooms, parlors, reception rooms, library, servants' quarters, etc. The plans of a new fort are at present under way, and the proposed site is at Sambro. At present the defences of Halifax consist of the Citadel and the harbour forts.
The Citadel, which has only a few modern guns, was condemned some years ago, but is still capable of sheltering within its walls the greater portion of the population of Halifax.
Of the harbor forts York Redoubt is the greatest and most impregnable being armed with 12-inch quick-firing disappearing guns. McNab's Island is also well mounted with several disappearing guns of the most modern type.
Amongst the other harbor forts may be mentioned George's Island, which is strongly fortified, and which commands the entrance of the harbor, also Fort Clarence, Fort Ogilvie, Ives' Battery and Fort Cambridge.
These first are situated in different parts of the harbor and all are mounted with modern weapons of the latest type and manned by men of the Royal Garrison Artillery, who in tests with the Atlantic fleet have demonstrated the utter impossibility of any vessel, no matter of what tonnage, to enter harbor without being discovered and blown out of the water.
Beside the harbor forts, look out stations at Camperdown and the North West Arm and vessels are sighted and signalled fully twenty miles out to sea.
Modern range finders are on all the forts, and the men of the Royal Artillery take special courses each year in the manipulation of these instruments.
The barrack accommodation for the past ten years has always been a source of complaint and the proposed new changes will be hailed with delight by both officers and men alike.
The officers' quarters of the Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers were not at all up to the standard called for by a naval and military station of the importance of Halifax and their proposed improvement will be eagerly looked forward to.
The barracks accommodation for the men, especially the married ones, has been very inadequate, and the new married quarters will fill the long felt want.
At present there is stationed at Halifax the Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry, a company of the Royal Engineers, also detachments of the Royal Army Medical Corps, the Royal Garrison Artillery and the Army Service Corps.
Churchfield Barracks, on Brunsick Street, Halifax, is the last remaining structure of the 1902-3 building program to improve barracks in this part of the City.
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