History

Jack Ward Memorial Heritage Center


Jack Ward Memorial Heritage is a big part of our history. This 2-story building is the oldest known standing structure in Notre Dame Bay. The lower level was a general store owned and operated by Mr. Jack Ward while the upper level was the home of Mr. Ward and his family. The heritage centre has a gift shop in the lower level of this site with many homemade items for your every need, the upper level is now the site of our heritage centre with many items and a lot of history from many years ago.

It also has a little kitchen on the upper level with a large deck that you can go out, have a coffee and look out over the harbour, and the amazing thing about our heritage center is that it is located right on the government wharf, just as Mr. Ward had planned his business years ago when the main travel into Leading Tickles was by way of boat.

Historical Sites

Old Catholic Cemetery

The Old Catholic Cemetery, also known as East Tickle R.C. Cemetery, is a small cemetery surrounded by white-painted, wooden fencing and is located at East Tickle Road in Leading Tickles, NL. The designation includes all the land area of the cemetery fenced in at the time of designation.

The Old Catholic Cemetery has been designated a municipal heritage site by the Town of Leading Tickles due to its historic and aesthetic value. The Old Catholic Cemetery has historic value as the third oldest cemetery in Leading Tickles and because of its connection to the Catholic faith in the community. The cemetery appears to date from at least the first half of the twentieth century and stayed in use until at least the late 1950s. The cemetery’s headstone inscriptions also have value as historic records. The three surviving stones commemorate Patrick Butler (1920), Patrick Butler (1956), and Patrick Cook (1958). The latter Butler was a First World War Veteran whose headstone identifies him as having been a Private with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. The three stones also present something of the chronology of headstone styles, the first a table type in white marble, the second a column type in white marble, and the third a tablet type in grey granite. The Old Catholic Cemetery also has aesthetic value because of its traditional appearance. Many graves are without headstones, but individual grave plots are identifiable by raised wooden boundary markers within whose perimeters the ground is covered in gravel, further distinguishing them from the rest of the cemetery, which is of natural vegetation. In typical fashion, the cemetery is surrounded by traditional, white-painted, wooden paling fencing. Taken together, the fence, plot boundary markers, ground cover and headstones combine to make the cemetery a distinctive cultural landscape feature in the East Tickle section of Leading Tickles.

Old Methodist Cemetery

The Old Methodist Cemetery is located in a clearing at the area known as Hannam’s Garden, in a wooded area, alongside a footpath to Rowsell’s Island, in the Town of Leading Tickles. It is a small, fenced cemetery and includes three individually fenced grave plots and less than ten extant headstones. The Municipal Heritage Land designation includes all the area of the cemetery land fenced in at the time of designation.

The Old Methodist Cemetery is significant for its historic and aesthetic values.

The Old Methodist Cemetery has historic value as the second oldest cemetery in the Town of Leading Tickles, and because of its connection with the Methodist/United Church congregation in the community. The cemetery appears to have been in use as a burial ground through the mid 1900s.

The cemetery’s headstones’ inscriptions have value as historic records. Five of the remaining legible stones commemorate members of the Chippett family while the others commemorate two women named Rowsell, another family long associated with the area. Both are surnames long connected with the Leading Tickles area.

The Old Methodist Cemetery has aesthetic value because its location along an historically used footpath towards Rowsell’s Island and its traditional appearance evoke the early twentieth century. Its surviving white marble headstones are typical of the period in their style and material. Three instances of traditional type grave plot fencing consisting of low, wooden, white-painted pickets also remain. In typical fashion, the cemetery is grassy and entirely surrounded by wooden fencing. These elements combine to make the cemetery a distinctive cultural landscape feature.

Old Church of England Cemetery

The Old Church of England Cemetery is located in a grassy clearing off Old Cemetery Road in Leading Tickles, NL. It is a fenced cemetery with mainly white marble gravemarkers. The designation includes all the area of the cemetery defined by fencing at the time of designation.

The Old Church of England Cemetery has been designated a municipal heritage site by the Town of Leading Tickles due to its historic and aesthetic value. The Old Church of England Cemetery has historic value because of its age and because of its connection to the Anglican congregation in the community. It is the oldest known cemetery in Leading Tickles, having been in use by at least 1860, and up until around 1950. The cemetery’s headstones have historic value because their inscriptions record more than twenty local surnames, dates of birth and death, and other genealogical and historical information. The Old Church of England Cemetery has aesthetic value because its appearance evokes the period in which it was in use as a burial ground. Most of the approximately sixty extant headstones are of white marble, mainly in tablet forms, with some column forms, which is typical for cemeteries of the period. These are set amongst the grassy typography of the fenced cemetery land, making the site a distinctive feature of the local cultural landscape, at the top of the “Old Cemetery Road” named for it.