Digby court, jail to serve as tour hilights

Most people are familiar with the Digby jail and courthouse serving the needs of the criminal justice system. On Nov. 2, the buildings will host tours by participants in a program sponsored by the Canadian Historic Places Initiative. County heritage coordinator Rob Hersey said owners of registered heritage properties in the county were the first to participate in a nation-wide program to map heritage properties. Representatives of CHPI will be in Digby to present a memento of the project to participants.

"They've posted all of the registered provincial and municipal heritage properties on a database," said Hersey. "As part of that, Digby was one of the pilot communities used to get this up and running in Nova Scotia."

Hersey said the actual presentations would be held at the Municipal offices, but he wanted to include a tour component for people who would be visiting the area, perhaps for the first time outside of cyberspace.

"This is where the courthouse and the jail come in; Both are interesting and historic places - and a lot of people have not ever been into the jail house," said Hersey. "It's gone under a considerable amount on the interior, but the exterior on both buildings have gone through extensive restorations, they're two good buildings just to look at, and you can walk from one to the other."

Built in 1906, the jail house is one of only two buildings of its style still standing in the county, but it was almost lost just a few years ago.

The province had slated the building for demolition to make way for a badly needed parking lot. Somehow, Hersey got word of the plan, discovered nobody in town government knew about it, and together they sent a letter expressing their concerns to the government.

Upon touring the building, officials agreed it was too historically important to demolish.

"They said it was an historic building and ended up replacing all of the windows with replica wooden ones, and the doors as well, they did a very nice job," said Hersey. "They used old photos from the 1920s and brought the building back in a very respectful way."

In addition the presentations and tour, Hersey said the event is also a way to re-connect with many of the local heritage property owners, and share information on some other programs.

He said a representative from the Insurance Bureau of Canada would be on hand to discuss insuring older buildings, and address some of the mis-information that's floating around.

A provincial representative will talk about the province's heritage property program and a representative from the Heritage Trust will discuss the Heritage Properties Owners Association and how membership could benefit owners.