Campbell & MacKeen Law Office

The Campbell & McKeen Law Office is a typical residential dwelling for a working class family in late nineteenth-century Nova Scotia, and one of the few remaining in the village of Guysborough. The MacDonald family occupied it for over one hundred years. Augustus MacDonald, the village constable, operated a blacksmith shop in the rear yard.

Late Victorian Plain style homes in Nova Scotia were typically discreet in their ornamentation and utilitarian, suggesting practicality rather than the extravagance of other Victorian styles. There was a tendency to incorporate elements that suggest country homes such as deep verandahs and sometimes bay windows. Many of them were built quickly to house families with ties to the industrial boom in previously underdeveloped areas of the province. The Campbell & McKeen Law Office exemplifies this, with its symmetrical window placement, lack of extraneous ornamentation and verandah located at the streetline.