With the first train passing through Hantsport on Christmas Day, 1869, the town, and the area, have had rail service for nearly 150 years. Passenger service, however, has long ago been discontinued, as is evidenced by the condition of this depot. Hantsport is another town in Nova Scotia which has had three depots, the first in 1893. That station was replaced shortly before the first World War with one which burned in 1943.
Today, the sole reason that the railway is active is the need to export gypsum. Such was also the case in World War II and the station was replaced immediately after the second one burned. Typical of its neighbors up and down the rail line, this station is built of brick, but in a style reminiscent of stations designed decades earlier.
Hopefully, the town of Hantsport has plans in the works to save and restore its station. Too many have disappeared already.
Canadian Pacific Railway Station
DESCRIPTION OF HISTORIC PLACE
The Canadian Pacific Railway Station at Hantsport is a one-storey, brick-clad railway station, built in 1943. It is located in the town of Hantsport, in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. The formal recognition is confined to the railway station building itself.
HERITAGE VALUE
One of the last stations built by the Dominion Atlantic Railway (DAR), a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), the CPR Station at Hantsport reflects the wartime optimism of the DAR and the CPR in the future of passenger service in small-town Canada. Built in a heavily industrialized community, the station represents the continuing importance of the railway to Hantsport’s economic growth.
The Hantsport station was the last of the DAR stations to follow the traditional station design established in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Its design reflects the DAR’s determination to adhere to past aesthetic traditions while adjusting to changing functional needs and values. It was the first DAR station to incorporate freight facilities under the same roof as passenger facilities, rather than in a separate freight shed, marking the beginning of an important trend in Annapolis Valley station design.
The station retains its relationship to the surrounding rail yard and related structures, including the main line and sidings, tracks running on both sides of the station and the motor car section house and storage shed. The station also retains its relationship with adjacent industrial buildings, including a lumber mill and a gypsum plant.
CHARACTER-DEFINING ELEMENTS
Character-defining elements of the Canadian Pacific Railway Station at Hantsport include:
-its small scale and one-storey form
-its simple and pleasing “artistic” bungalow design, evident in: the flattened hip roof with plain, tapered chimney stack; the wide overhanging eaves with exposed rafters and timber eave brackets; the use of brick and painted, smooth-finish concrete as wall materials; and the grouping of windows in pairs or as sidelights to a door
-the projecting operator’s bay, centred on the track side and accented by a half-timbered gable
-the flanking canopies at either end of the building, supported on timber brackets
-the strong horizontal lines provided by the broached station eaves, extended north and south to form platform canopies; the running-bond, brick, upper section of wall; the soldier-course, brick banding; and the forward-set concrete base
-the careful spacing and repetition of secondary elements, including two-over-two, vertical sliding windows with two-light transom; segmental, brick, arched openings; framed and braced wood doors; and delicately curved, timber eave brackets
-features common to Dominion Atlantic Railway (DAR) stations, including the concrete wainscot, multiple pane windows, transoms over windows and doors, wide, overhanging eaves, and supporting brackets
-features typical of early-20th-century railway stations, including rectangular plan; hip roof; wide, overhanging eaves; eave brackets; and a projecting agent’s bay
-the incorporation of the freight shed into the end of the building
-the interior plan, with a single waiting room rather than gender-separated rooms
-the use of a limited range of building materials, including brick and timber
-surviving original interior partitioning, finishes and joinery, including hardwood and cement floors, plaster walls, burlap dado, and insulating board ceiling.
From Historic Places Canada