photo courtesy Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, 2002.

At the turn of the century, in the year 1899, construction began on what was to later become the Greenspond Courthouse, a structure which became the centre of all judicial activities for Bonavista North in the early nineteen hundreds. Home to some of Newfoundland's more well known and respected judges and justices, this institutional building is unique in its historical and cultural importance to the area.

The courthouse's design was drafted by William Henry Churchill and the plans were carried out by the builder J.J. Mifflin. A simple, two-storey frame construction, with a mansard roof, dormer windows and a walk in tower, the structure housed not only the courtroom itself, but also functioned as the former council office, a jail, a temporary morgue for the victims of shipwrecks, and a residence for the jailer and his family. At the present time, the Courthouse is being used as a museum of material culture, storing and displaying artefacts from Greenspond and across the province.

Like many of the structures on Bonavista's North Shore, the Greenspond Courthouse has weathered well in our climate. Its scars came from human, rather than climatic intervention. The tower roof which had been removed and replaced with a flatter roof at an unspecified date was restored. The cedar shingles were replaced on the Mansard roof and tower roof. The correction of these alterations, as well as a variety of minor repairs and basic rewiring were undertaken in the mid 1990s.

On a hill overlooking Greenspond Harbour and Bonavista Bay, the Greenspond Courthouse is a proud institutional monument of great architectural importance and immense historical value. Recognition of this was undertaken by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador when, in October of 1988, that particular group designated the Courthouse as a Registered Heritage Structure.