I have used postcards from my personal collection as illustrations for this website and in From Devastation To Beauty – The Creation Of The Butchart Gardens .
Here are some of those postcards, in alphabetical order by topic:
Begonia Bower , Butchart Gardens
The Begonia Bower and the building designed in 1917 by Samuel Maclure as a “Chinaman’s Cottage ” and later renamed the Gardener’s Cottage, circa 1950 (Author’s collection)
Belmont Building
The Belmont Building (center) and the Union Club (right), circa 1920. Robert Butchart’s office was on the third floor of the Belmont Building and he was a member of the Union Club . (Author’s collection)
Postcard showing the Belmont Building , the Union Club , the Empress Hotel and the Causeway, circa 1925 (Author’s collection)
Benvenuto , Butchart Gardens
Postcard showing Benvenuto , circa 1925, prior to construction of the Italian Garden and the 1929 addition to the east side of the Italian Garden . This postcard is postmarked 5 September 1925. (Author’s collection)
Postcard showing Benvenuto and the Italian Garden , circa 1930,, following construction of the 1929 addition to the east side of Benvenuto and the Italian Garden. (Author’s collection)
Japanese Garden , Butchart Gardens
Postcard showing the Japanese Garden , , circa 1930’s. (Author’s collection)
Japanese Tea Garden , Gorge Park
Postcard of the Japanese Tea Garden designed by Isaburo Kishida at Gorge Park, Victoria, B.C. This postcard is postmarked in 1913.(Author’s collection)
Lakefield , Ontario – Lakefield Portland Cement Company
Postcard showing the Trent-Severn Waterway Locks and the Sawmill at Lakefield , Ontario, 1908 (Author’s Collection)
The Mound , Sunken Garden , Butchart Gardens
Postcard showing the Sunken Garden Mound , circa 1920’s. This section of the Sunken Garden was designed by Raoul Robillard . (Author’s collection)
Rose Garden , Butchart Gardens
Postcard showing Benvenuto , viewed from the west, circa 1919-1920, prior to the construction of the Private Garden in 1921 and the Rose Garden in 1929. The foreground shows the “Kitchen Garden” which is now the site of the Rose garden . (Author’s collection)
Sunken Garden , Butchart Gardens
Postcard of the Sunken Garden , circa 1920 (Author’s collection)
Victoria’s Inner Harbour
Victoria’s Inner Harbour looking west from the Empress Hotel, circa 1920. The Evans, Coleman & Evans Ltd . warehouse on Pier A, Wharf Street is visible in the lower right of the photograph. The company’s name is painted on the warehouse roof. Robert Butchart would have seen a similar view of the Inner Harbour from the B.C. Cement Company ’s 3rd floor offices in the nearby Belmont Building at the corner of Government and Humboldt Streets. (Author’s collection)
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