Rolph Street Public School

Early days

The Oxford Estates had another life between 1912 and 2015. For one hundred and three years the building served as a school house — first as Tillsonburg Public School, renamed in the 1950s to Rolph Street Public School. Before 1912, another school stood here from 1870 to 1911, until the trustees deemed it unsuitable and built anew in its place.

The first school house in the settlement was a one-room log building from the 1830s near the old tannery at the foot of Vienna Hill. By 1869 the trustees concluded that buying land on Rolph Street — owned by the Tillson family and sold to the board at a nominal fee — beat repairing the old school. The new building was contracted for 156,000 bricks at $6 a thousand; the whole building was estimated at $5,000.

The 1870 school

Construction started in 1871. On May 24th, 1871 the cornerstone was laid with a time capsule — copper and silver coins of the Dominion, a twenty-five cent scrip, and copies of the newspapers of the day. In 1872 the Tillsonburg Observer wrote that "Tillsonburg will possess a school house second to no other in the Province."

In 1886 a wing was added for the town's first high school; by 1894 the high school had its own building on land donated by E.D. Tillson. Former students remembered two children per seat, two classes per room, the three R's, and baseball in the school yard. In 1904 two cannons — said to be old Russian guns, each weighing 2,150 pounds — were placed out front. In 1942 they were melted down for the war effort.

The 1912 school

In February 1912 the students vacated the building and took lessons in rented rooms around town — city hall, stores, churches — while a new school with running water and electricity rose in its place. The cornerstone was laid on June 28, 1912, again with a time capsule: newspapers, photos, coins, a pipe, a horseshoe, a pocket knife, a list of Bell Telephone subscribers, and cheques from the four banks. That cornerstone is still part of the building today.

The new school opened September 8th, 1913 — twelve large classrooms, eleven immediately occupied, a staff of eleven teachers. It cost $32,500 to build, and it was said at the time it could not be built again for $50,000. Asked what was best about the new school, the students' answer was simple: "running water." Children went to the basement and flushed the toilets just to hear them flush.

1930–2015

Through the Depression the schoolyard stayed divided — boys on one side, girls on the other — and when all the bats were broken and the balls were lost, the children played with a stick and a stone. In 1950 the school took the name that still sits on the front of the building. In 1989 came the biggest change since 1912: a gymnasium, auditorium and library. At the 75th anniversary in 1987, principal Fred Brown counted "about 15,000" students who had passed through. The school celebrated its centennial in 2012 and closed its doors in June 2015.

Today

After the closure the building passed through several owners before Ontario developers Andrew Teeple and Tim McKillican saw the chance to give it new life. Keeping the heritage features was the priority: the bright red brick, original dormers and window sills, the stonework and keystones above the four main entrances, the red brick chimneys, the tin ceilings, and the original hardwood floors.

The conversion took over 100,000 human-hours. Teeple's own father came out of retirement to pick up a hammer. Many Tillsonburg residents — former students and teachers among them — have toured the project and found their memories intact in its walls.