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Rockwood 1842

Rockwood was built in 1842 as a country villa for John Solomon Cartwright (1804-1845). Designed by George Browne, architect of the Kingston City Hall, in a monumental phase of the Regency style, it is a stone structure covered with stucco but lined to suggest ashlar masonry. Cartwright began to practise law in Kingston in 1830 and in 1831, became president of the Commercial Bank of the Midland District. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada in 1836 and of Canada in 1841. The government acquired this property in 1856 as site for a "Criminal Lunatic Asylum". With another building erected in 1859, it became the nucleus of the present psychiatric hospital.

Location

At the house, on the grounds of Kingston Psychiatric Hospital, off Front Road west of Portsmouth Avenue, Kingston

Region: Eastern Ontario

County/District: County of Frontenac

Municipality: City of Kingston

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