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The Trust is the custodian of more than 25,000 cultural artifacts related to its properties ...

... furniture, ceramics, textiles, paintings, sculptures and archival documents. These valuable heritage artifacts provide insight about the people who lived here before us.

Our collections

The Trust's collection consists of cultural objects that are governed by our collections policy and site-specific acquisition plans. The primary focus of the collection is that they must relate to the history or interpretation of the properties the Trust owns.

The collection is varied and consists of over 21,000 artifacts dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. It includes furniture, ceramics, textiles, paintings, sculptures, pharmaceutical instruments, silver, vaudeville theatre scenery flats, and archival documents. The artifacts are documented, researched, conserved, interpreted and displayed at sites throughout Ontario. The cultural objects and historical material enable the public to understand the social, economic and cultural significance of the historic environment in which we live.

The Trust owns and operates sites such as Fulford Place in Brockville and Homewood Museum in Maitland. Occasionally, the Trust divests collections that are beyond its mandate by transferring the ownership of the collections to responsible community operators such as the City of Mississauga (recipient of the property and collection of Benares) and the City of Ottawa (recipient of the Firestone Art Collection). Today, the Trust's collections concentrate on items related to the properties it owns. They include furnishings for residences such as Fulford Place in Brockville, Inge-Va in Perth, and Homewood Museum in Maitland, as well as archaeological artifacts discovered during excavations at Trust-owned sites.

Here are just a few of our heritage treasures: