Little Bits of Downtown Halifax

I had last Friday off work, so I spent part of the day in downtown Halifax running errands. I saw a few interesting things on my travels, so I thought I’d share them with you.

This is the Old Burying Grounds, located at the corner of Spring Garden Rd. and Barrington St. According to the plaque on the outside of the gates it was in use from 1749-1844. It’s closed for the winter but you can still peek through the elaborate iron fence. At the entrance is a rather striking monument errected to honour those who fought in the Crimean War:

But what interested me was the preventive conservation in action with little Tyvex tents over some of the headstones:

For non-conservator readers of the blog, preventive conservation are all of the things you can do to help prevent something old from falling apart. Protect a headstone from the winter elements and that will hopefully slow down any cracking and crumbling (at least that’s my assumption why they are there since I couldn’t find any more information on the internet). The cemetery is cared for by the Old Burying Ground Foundation, who has overseen a number of restoration projects on the grounds since the 1980’s.

It later started to snow, so here’s a better shot of the cemetery with St. Mary’s Basilica in the background:

I also thought you should see the statue of Sir Winston Churchill outside the public library just down the street from the Basilica:

And like every proper statue of Churchill, it’s surrounded by a small heard of pigeons. But, from the looks of it this statue doesn't have a heated head to prevent the birds from landing and pooping on his head:

I really liked the pattern in the snow from all the bird feet.

The beginning of the snow storm was big, fluffy flakes that make you feel like you’re standing in a snow globe. Never mind that it made the roads crazy slippy and it took me forever to get home on the bus... the snow, just for a while, made everything look very pretty: