Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

Page 14 text:

around the parapet, tracery and heraldic shields, the Tower was designed to have four octagonals with a large oval window in the center, and the main doorway to the Administration Building was inspired by that of St. Mary’s at Oxford. The taste of Father Thomas MacMahon, the rector, and his desire for beautiful things were manifest on all sides. For example, the magnificent solid oak doors of linen fold design leading to the chapel, offices and parlors on the main floor of the Administration Building, although luxurious for those difficult days, are now valued as prized possessions.”

Page 13 text:

“In 1913 the architects Peden and McLaren, with Walter J. Murray as an associate, were engaged, and a plan to develop the fifty acres of farmland was presented: that part of the land on the south side of Sherbrooke Street was to be left as an orchard for the col lege to cultivate, and on the other half north of Sherbrooke Street, several handsome buildings were to rise. After a careful study of other in- stitutions, a basic proposal was made: to discard the traditional plan of ‘one large building with its dark and cheerless rooms, and to follow the modern English tendency towards separate buildings for each department’... The new buildings were conceived on the lines of a free adaption of the Tudor and Early Renaissance type of English Collegiate Gothic. “...with gargoyles Here’s a brief run-down on Loyola’s physical history taken from T.P. Slattery’s LOYOLA AND MONTREAL. In 1900 the Decary Farm consisting of 50 acres was purchased by the Corporation of Loyola College. This par- ticular site, it was said, produced the best musk- melons in North America. The cost: $25,297.10. The move west from Deum- mond Street (the site of the original school did not ac- tually take place until 1916.

Page 15 text:

Loyola’s development has made it necessary to adapt buildings to func- tions for which they were not originally designed. Part of the Administration Building, for example, was once the Jesuit’s residence and the Refectory their dining room. The Central Building was at one time the only classroom area. Today it could not even accomodate an ordinary elementary school population. Vestiges of the old can still be found in many classrooms, such as those in the Tower of the Administration Building. 13