Victoria’s Alternative Attractions - Wentworth Villa
Every city has its top tier museums and galleries. For Victoria, we have the Royal BC Museum and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. I think that a city’s richness really shines when it has a great secondary layer of institutions for residents and visitors alike. For a city of Victoria’s size, I think we are doing better than you would expect in this regard. This is my third article in this series, you can read the previous two here and here. The kinds of places that fit into this category are maybe a little smaller, a little more boutique, but still amazing places to visit.
Wentworth Villa (1156 Fort Street) maybe fits my definition of great secondary sights more than any other. It is a wonderful small museum that is completely unique in the city and for the most part relatively unknown by visitors and locals alike. Being honest, how many of you knew that Victoria has an architectural heritage museum? I have been through the museum a few times and have always enjoyed the information that they have there. It is great to see some of the unique pieces that are on display as well. So how did we end up with an architectural heritage museum? As you will see on their really nice website, the museum is operated by the Pacific Northwest Heritage Homes Foundation and they spent many years restoring the ‘carpenter gothic’ home into its current form. Before that, the house operated as an antique shop for many years with the owners living in the back. Since being taken over by the foundation, the house has been completely renovated. You can see a fair bit of details about the process on the second floor of the museum.
I believe that the museum finally opened in 2017, though even I didn’t become aware of it until some time during the pandemic. Since then, I have made sure to let people I know with a love of architecture about this little gem of a museum. I suspect that many first time visitors of it, find out about it as an attendee of one of the many events in the performance and lecture hall that they have attached to the museum. The event space was a mid-1950’s addition to the home and as part of the restoration of the main house, this was turned into an performance hall. You can look at the extensive calendar of upcoming events, both musical and academic here.
Now is a really great time to visit Wentworth Villa as there is a great exhibit on. I had been meaning to head over to Wentworth Villa for awhile, but when I saw that they had a photography exhibit on, I was even more determined. The exhibition title is Knight’s Victoria - The Architectural Photography of Harry Upperton Knight. I had never heard of this photographer before, which is too bad because he was really a very good photographer especially when you consider the most prolific time of his work was between the wars of the 20th century. Knight had a photography shop on Fort street right near where Chocolat is now. While the exhibit focuses on his architectural work, I really liked his street photography and his pictorial photos which were truly almost like paintings. You can look at a broad catalog of his photos here. If you have a chance to visit the exhibit, go for it as it only runs until December 31, 2025.
No matter whether it is for the current exhibit or just to check out the museum, Wentworth Villa needs to be on your list of places to visit in Victoria. The one caveat that I will put on that is that it is only open Thursday to Saturday from 11-4 which does mean that you have to be very targeted in your plans to visit. Maybe if they start to get streams of people through the door, they will need to be open more of the week.
Have you visited Wentworth Villa? Have you never heard of it? Let me know in the comments!
