Mount Uniacke, Nova Scotia
The Old Attorney General’s Country Estate
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Uniacke Estate Museum Park is a part of the country estate of Attorney-General Richard John Uniacke. Built between 1813 to 1815, the grand country house is one of the finest in the Georgian style in Canada. The estate offers visitors a vivid glimpse of life in the early 1800s among Nova Scotia's gentry. |
In 1813, Richard John Uniacke began building his country home on a gentle slope near a lake named after his wife, Martha. It was a fine home, befitting the Attorney General of Nova Scotia. He furnished the house in elegant style too.
Much of the graceful mahogany furniture was imported from London, the work of George Adams, a prominent cabinetmaker. The house was filled with looking glasses, high post beds, a library, modern stoves, and even scientific equipment of the day, such as a static electricity machine.
Remarkably, little has changed since Uniacke lived here over 175 years ago. The house was not modernized. Virtually all of the layout and the original furnishings remain in place. This is very rare for a house of its age in Canada.
Today, the estate is preserved as a provincial museum site, with the grand house and its fine collection on display in season, and its extensive parkland available to visitors year-round with walking trails.
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Read more about Richard John Uniacke in:
- "The Old Attorney General - His Family and His Estate." Uniacke Estate Seminar, 1989. Sheila Stevenson editor, Curatorial Report No. 70, Nova Scotia Museum: Halifax, 1991
- Read an account of Nova Scotia during the years 1816-1820 by the Earl of Dalhousie, Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia in The Dalhousie Journals. Edited by Marjorie Whitelaw, Oberon Press: Ottawa, 1981.
- Uniacke Estate Seminar, 1989
edited by Sheila Stevenson
Curatorial Report # 70, 1991, 167pp, illus.
- Archaeological Investigations on the Uniacke Estate, Hants County, Nova Scotia, 1992
Laird Niven
Curatorial Report # 74, 1993, 112pp, illus.