Heritage Value

The Kamloops Court House is valued as a landmark complex of buildings and surrounding landscape, consisting of the Court House, the Land Registry to the south and a terraced site. As the physical embodiment of the provincial legal system in the City’s early years, the complex was designed to convey a sense of justice and authority through the use of traditional and imposing design. As a prominent commercial and industrial hub in the Interior in the early 1900s, Kamloops was an important regional centre for the province. The first court house, a small white-washed log cabin, was erected in 1873 at the west end of town. With the subsequent railway survey and construction in the 1880s, a new wood-frame court house was built at the corner of Victoria Street and First Avenue to serve the growing town site. Quickly outgrown by the burgeoning population, a grant of $20,000 for a new court house and offices was issued by the province in 1907. The Court House and perimeter wall were completed in 1909, and the Land Registry added to the rear in 1911. 

The Kamloops Court House building is further valued as a showcase of the province’s prosperity and growth, and as a symbolic link to the provincial government. During the first years of the twentieth century, the province enjoyed a boom of unprecedented proportions, spurred by the resource-based economy and optimistic foreign investment. A network of major regional court houses were built during this time in Vancouver, Revelstoke, Kamloops, Nelson, Vernon and Fernie that consolidated the province’s administration of the judicial system. The heart of these structures, the formal and traditional court room, demonstrates the lasting influence of the traditional British justice system. 

The Kamloops Court House is also a superb and intact example of the influence of the Edwardian Baroque style, and also demonstrates an Arts and Crafts sensibility on the interior. Mainly symmetrical, the building features an elaborate central entry with ogee shaped door, prominent parapet gables and a corner square-domed tower. Built primarily of local brick, and provincially-sourced granite, limestone and slate and interior wooden materials from local lumber mills, the choice of materials symbolized a commitment to the use of quality British Columbia materials and products, a source of pride in this provincial building. Throughout, there is an exceptional level of design and craftsmanship. It is one of the most accomplished designs of prominent architects Dalton & Eveleigh. The stained glass was provided by the studio of Charles Bloomfield. The Land Registry, designed by the Provincial Department of Public Works, carries through the same design elements and was entered on axis with the main building. 

Now owned by the City of Kamloops, the Kamloops Court House is one of British Columbia’s most striking Edwardian-era public buildings and a Kamloops landmark.

Character-Defining Elements

The elements that define the heritage character of the Kamloops Court House include its:

• prominent location on Seymour Street West and First Avenue at the entrance to the downtown core
• siting on a terraced corner site, set-back from the road with views of the City and the Thompson River
• complex traditional form, grand scale and side-gabled massing of the Court House with its central-gabled projection at the front entry, corner square tower with turret on the west side and bay with windows on the east side
• spatial relationship between the Court House and the Land Registry, including connecting open external breezeway
• masonry construction of the Court House and Land Registry including pressed red brick facades, tuckpointing, tapered rubble-stone granite foundations, dressed limestone accents and slate roofs; central exterior granite staircase to main entrance of Court House; masonry perimeter wall with bands of rubble-stone granite and dressed stone detailing
• consistent use of Edwardian Baroque architectural features such as curved stone modillions, tapered pinnacles at the corners, crenellated parapets, dressed limestone banding, Palladian and recessed window openings, and cupola with copper roof
• provincial symbolism such carved provincial crest on front projecting bay and interior dogwood motifs
• fenestration, such as 6-over-1 double-hung wooden sash windows with horns, six-paned casement window in corner bay, 4-paned casement windows in oriel bay at front entrance and Palladian window with multi-paned leaded stained glass
• additional exterior details such as copper gutters, and pressed red-brick chimney with limestone detailing
• intact interior features with Arts and Crafts details of the Court House such as the intact courtroom with judges dais with canopy, prisoners dock, ornate wainscoting, mouldings and dentils with quatrefoil symbolism and domed ceiling with ornate wooden bracing; general interior details such as intact room configuration, wooden flooring, gauged plaster cornices, tapered newel posts with carved dogwood flowers, interior leaded glass with Arts and Crafts floral influence, mosaic tilework, ogee shaped doorways; oak entry lobby and front entry doors; and intact jail in the basement
• formal symmetrical landscaping with mature deciduous trees, including Silver Maples, stepped masonry perimeter wall, and granite staircases