Ladies’ College Park/Swan Pond

Ladies’ College Park/Swan Pond
155 Main Street, Sackville, N.B.
LADIES’ COLLEGE PARK/SWAN POND
1854
Ladies’ College Park is located on the grounds of Mount Allison University in Sackville. It includes gently rolling slopes, centered by a pond, with water fountain, and surrounded by grass, flowerbeds, shrubs and trees.The Mount Allison Ladies’ College was founded in 1854 as the “Female Branch” of the Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy, established in 1843. The park was laid out to provide for secluded walks with chaperones and “Lawn Drill”.

The pond was added in 1901. Both the pond and the fountain were designed by artist and Fine Arts teacher John Hammond (see Hammond Studio). Since 1968 there have been swans in the pond hence the local designation “Swan Pond”.

This site is listed in the Canadian Register of Historic Places ; for fuller details see Ladies’ College Park

Jackson, K. and C.Scobie, Sackville Then And Now: New Brunswick’s Oldest Town In Photographs,” (Sackville, N.B.: Tantramar Heritage Trust, 2013), p. 84.

Leroux, John and Thaddeus Holownia, A Vision in Wood and Stone: The Architecture of Mount Allison University (Kentville, N.S.: Gaspereau Press, 2016), pp.59-61.

One morning in the late fall of 1948 students and townspeople were astonished to see two motor cars on the larger of the two islands in the pond, along with a “No Parking” sign with a concrete base. “Who was responsible?” “How as the feat carried out?” For further information see Hamilton, Bill, “The ‘Incident’ At The Former Lily Pond,” Sackville Tribune-Post, 27 March 2002, p.5.


Tantramar Heritage Trust | Historic Sites