- Music and History Come Alive: A Successful Doors Open Auchmar 2024
Doors Open at Auchmar 2024 was once again a huge success. We welcomed almost 1,000 guests each day. Mayor Andrea Horwath cut the ribbon on Saturday morning and MPP Monique Taylor cut the ribbon on Sunday.
The theme for Doors Open this year was music, and so we entertained a fiddler, Ruth Hutchison on Saturday and 3 harpists, Siobhan Kerr, Zoe Yiu and Lochlan Gillespie, on Sunday.
Also on Saturday, we welcomed Christine Dignard and her Auchmar tack. She was given this by the Douglas family several years ago and it once belonged to Gwyneth Young. Our ‘thanks for attending’ draw brought lots of entries for those who wanted to win one of Elizabeth Sue Hanna’s artworks of Auchmar Mansion. Michelle Piano won a Friends of Auchmar membership for guessing 23 out of 25 historic windows.
The Friends of Auchmar continue to work on finding a long-term lease for this outstanding historic estate. Our General Annual Meeting for 2024 will be held sometime in the fall. Stay tuned for date and location.
Find My Ward
Would you like to help save Auchmar and see it restored and repurposed? Please contact your councillor. You can use this City of Hamilton Ward Map to determine your ward and councillor if you do not know.
Call for Photographs
Over 21 years ago, the Hamilton Mountain Heritage Society commenced work on the book, Mountain Memories, which was well received. Part of that work was a Call for Photographs from the community for consideration in the book. The community responded passionately, sending numerous images.
The FOA is currently undertaking a photo essay project and we are calling upon the owners and custodians of private photograph collections within the community.
The intent is to feature the Auchmar Estate throughout the decades, using unseen or rarely seen photographs, which depict the various eras of ownership and use. It will highlight and include the Buchanan family, the Young family, the R.C.A.F. and the Hungarian Sisters of Social Service among others.
Your contribution would be most welcomed and greatly appreciated. All photographs and originals would be scanned and returned to the owners.
Submissions, photographic and anecdotal, may be emailed to info@friendsofauchmar.ca or mailed to the following address: Friends of Auchmar, c/o 170 East 24th Street, Hamilton, Ontario L8V 2Y3. Please include a return mailing address.
About Auchmar Manor House
In 1852, Isaac Buchanan bought 54 acres of land on the Hamilton Mountain. The property stretched from the mountain brow to Fennell Ave. He built a summer cottage which eventually became Buchanan’s Manor House & Estate.
The purpose of the Friends is to bring together those persons committed to the history, preservation, conservation, rehabilitation and continuing public use of the Auchmar Manor House, its associated buildings and cultural landscape.