The Middlesex County Courthouse, a grim-looking building based on a medieval castle, stands on the site where historians say London, Ont., first took shape nearly two centuries ago.
“If you say ‘the old courthouse,’ everybody knows what you mean,” said Steve Liggett, a volunteer with the London-Middlesex Historical Society who has been giving tours of the building since 1988.
“It’s the most recognizable building in the city of London. It’s very much a symbol of the city.”
Generations of trials and executions have played out within its walls, including the proceedings behind the infamous Donnelly murders, the 1935 kidnapping of beer tycoon John Labatt and the 1872 execution of Phoebe Campbell, the first woman hanged in post-Confederation Canada.
Historian and tour guide Steve Liggett explains why the Middlesex County Courthouse is considered the symbolic heart of London, Ont.
The County of Middlesex sold the building and the former Middlesex County Health Building next door to York Developments for $30 million in 2019.
The company has announced plans for a 54-storey, 800-unit residential tower next door to the nearly 200-year-old building — casting a literal shadow over the place where the city began, while at the same time shining a light on what some heritage advocates say is a gap in federal law.
The courthouse still hosts county council and community group meetings and weddings — a strange afterlife for a place where trials and executions once played out.
Liggett said once the county moves out near the end of 2026, its future will be in private hands.
“I would like to believe that nobody is crazy enough to tear it down,” he said. “Everybody and their grandmother would be opposed to that. The problem is what do you do with it?”
The courthouse was originally designed to resemble Malahide Castle, built north of Dublin in 1475 and the ancestral home of Irish-born colonial administrator Thomas Talbot, whose influence helped shape early settlement in southwestern Ontario.
Renovations in the 1890s and again in 1911 significantly altered the building’s orientation, shifting its main face from the Thames River toward Talbot Street as London grew around it.
The courthouse is designated a National Historic Site of Canada, an honour given by the federal government to places “for their profound importance to the country’s history and culture,” yet the title carries little legal force.
“The designation doesn’t say you cannot tear it down,” Liggett said. “There’s only so much protection because private ownership is paramount. How would you like it if someone said you couldn’t tear your house down or sell it?”
Excavation risks raised
Plans by York Developments obtained by CBC News through a freedom of information request show the proposed tower would require four storeys of underground parking garage that would extend to within roughly 16 metres of the courthouse building.
Engineering documents tied to the project describe a “moderate potential impact” associated with excavation near the courthouse property.
“There is concern that the four-storey depth of excavation, and any additional shoring required, is within close proximity to this protected heritage building and can impact the structure,” Rachel Redshaw wrote in a March 10, 2023, heritage impact assessment prepared for York Developments by Kitchener, Ont.,-based MHBC Planning Limited.
Documents also reference “vibration monitoring” and other safeguards meant to prevent damage to the historic structure, including “certification by a structural engineer that the proposed development will be constructed in a way that will avoid damage to the courthouse.”
The City of London said those measures were recommended as part of a heritage impact assessment required during the tower’s planning approval process and are expected to be addressed through the site plan review.
Ontario Heritage Trust told CBC News in an email that it has not yet received the engineer’s certification or a risk management plan tied to the project from York Developments.
The company did not return a request for comment.
Should federal protection carry more power?
The situation reflects a broader debate among heritage advocates about whether federal designations such as a national historic site should carry stronger legal protections.
Only historic places owned by the federal government receive federal protection, while privately owned sites, such as the Middlesex County Courthouse, rely largely on a patchwork of provincial and municipal heritage laws for protection.
“What doesn’t happen when a place becomes a national historic site is there’s no protection for that place,” said Patricia Kell, CEO of the National Trust of Canada, a charity dedicated to preserving and protecting historic places across the country.
“The federal government does not have a law that obliges it or anyone else to protect that place or care for that place or not harm that place,” she said.
“Canada is the only G7 nation that does not have this kind of legislation to protect heritage places.”
Kell said the lack of federal protection has become more visible as development pressures increase.
She pointed to the redevelopment of Ontario Place in Toronto — where the provincial government approved plans for a private spa complex on land long considered a public landmark — as an example of how historic sites can be reshaped despite their cultural significance.
Some heritage consultants say that arrangement is not necessarily a flaw.
Rebecca Sciarra, a heritage consultant with ASI, which describes itself as the largest heritage and archaeological consulting firm in Ontario, said the federal designation was never meant to function as a regulatory protection.
She said it’s “best thought about as a recognition or a form of commemoration,” adding, “it doesn’t put into place a protective regulatory framework.”
Instead, she said, protection of historic buildings in Canada usually comes through provincial legislation, municipal heritage bylaws or conservation easements.
In the case of the Middlesex County Courthouse, Sciarra said the 1981 conservation easement attached to the property is what protects the building.
“When an owner is proposing to alter — and that can mean many different things from changing windows to a sizable addition to demolition — the proposal would then move on two tracks,” she said, through municipal heritage planning and the Ontario Heritage Trust.
The next step in the development process is a site plan review, where city staff will examine detailed engineering and construction plans, including vibration monitoring and structural safeguards meant to protect the courthouse.
