Port Greville Lighthouse

The Port Greville Lighthouse is a wooden, A-shaped lighthouse built in 1907 in Port Greville, Nova Scotia. The 8.3 meter structure stands near a river on the road-side property of the Age of Sail Heritage Centre on the outskirts of Port Greville over-looking the Greville River. Although it is no longer on its original site, it is close to its original community. The building and property are included in the municipal designation.

The Port Greville Lighthouse is valued for its association with the sea-faring history of this area of Cumberland County. The important community landmark is also valued as being a good example of a typical Cumberland County lighthouse built during the turn of the century.

Historical Value: The lighthouse was built in 1907 and lit in 1908 to protect the many ships, crews and cargoes that travelled the rugged Nova Scotia shoreline along the Bay of Fundy’s Minas Channel. Shipbuilding and lumbering were the major industries of this area in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the lighthouse played a central role in the settlement and economic development of the Port Greville area by making travel safe for ships entering and leaving the port. Because land travel was so difficult here, all the communities in the area grew out of the ship-related economy.

In 1980, the lighthouse was decommissioned, cut into two pieces, loaded onto a flatbed truck, and moved to the Coast Guard College in Sydney, Cape Breton, where it stood until 1998, when a group of local citizens successfully lobbied to have the important community landmark returned to its home.

Architectural Value: The Port Greville Lighthouse is a typical turn-of-the-century lighthouse found in this part of Cumberland County. It is a white, A-shaped, square, wooden tower with a balcony completely surrounding the top just below the square lantern. The lighthouse has not changed since it was constructed.

Source: “Heritage Properties County, Port Greville Lighthouse” File, Cumberland County Museum

Character-defining elements of the Port Greville Lighthouse include:

- original form and massing;

- original wood shingles;

- 8.3 metre, tapered square, wood-frame tower topped with red hip roof;

- pediment red gable hood mouldings above door and windows;

- square lantern;

- balcony.