Band of Hope Loyal Orange Lodge LOL 1402 Municipal Heritage Building

The Orange Hall, Band of Hope LOL 1402 in Elliston is significant for its aesthetic, architectural, historic and social values.

The Orange Hall has aesthetic value as a prominent landmark in Elliston’s cultural landscape, located in a cluster of historic institutional buildings including Elliston United Church, United Church Hall and St. Mary’s Anglican Church. It is perched on the hill named after it (Lodge Hill), so that it is visible from much of the community.

Architecturally, Band of Hope LOL 1402 is a good example of the types of lodges built in small Newfoundland communities around the late 1800s and early 1900s. The basic, rectangular, storey-and-a-half, wooden structure is clad in narrow painted clapboard, has a stone foundation, and its main entrance is in the front gable end. Its Gothic Revival style features include pointed arch windows and a steeply pitched roof clad in wooden shingles. The circular window in the front gable end has a star design in coloured glass, a symbolic, decorative element also seen in other Orange lodges of similar age and type. The flagpole at the peak of the front gable end is also typical of lodges.

The Orange Hall has historic value as one of the oldest intact buildings in Elliston and because of its association with the Loyal Orange Association (LOA), a fraternal organization whose lodges began to spring up in Newfoundland during the nineteenth century. The LOA was active in Elliston by the 1880s, and has a connection to sad, noteworthy events in the community. In 1881 five residents, all Orangemen, were lost when their vessel, The Brothers, sank off Change Islands. On the day of their memorial service their colleagues, clad in their Orangemen’s regalia, met at the Orange Hall and marched with their band to the nearby Methodist church. In 1914, eight residents of Elliston were among the 78 who died during the Newfoundland Disaster seal hunt tragedy, and their bodies were waked at the Orange Hall. Abram Kean, the legendary sealing captain who incurred heavy criticism in connection with the disaster, raised the ire of some locals by visiting and speaking, reportedly uninvited, at an LOA meeting at the hall that following June.

The Orange Hall also has social value, given its association with the LOA and its function as a centre for social gatherings such as meetings, parties and watching films over the years.