Thursday, July 25, 2013

A Visit to Kings Landing Historical Settlement in Prince William, New Brunswick

After talking about visiting Kings Landing for far too long, we finally decided to spend the day enjoying a tourist attraction that's close to home. We have been there for the Christmas dinner a couple of times, but have never taken the time to just wander through the settlement.

It was a beautiful day. Look at the neat clouds.

Here is Jim with our friends, Flemming and Lorie.

Kings Landing is a recreation of a rural town in New Brunswick during the time period 1780-1810. Many of the buildings were saved when the headpond for the Mactaquac Dam was created. The area was largely settled by the United Empire Loyalists.

We wandered down this road to a farmhouse...

And checked out this old canoe in one of the buildings. Inside the farmhouse, the ladies were churning butter.

The mill is currently not open to the public after having suffered some structural damage during the winter ice breakup.

They have several horse and buggies which you can hop on at any point if you get tired of walking...


An exquisite setting...


An English style garden at Ingraham House...

They would have been quite well off with a source of water just off the kitchen...

This is one of the oldest buildings at Kings Landing. It is an octagonal outhouse. Yup...a four-seater.

A depiction of life in rural New Brunswick...

Kings Landing is a living museum where costumed interpreters tend to the animals, run the blacksmiths shop, print shop, and the general store, along with other trades buildings.

The sheep came running to greet us...


The shopkeeper at this store was quite indignant when Jim told her that there was a statue of John A. MacDonald in Kingston. She quickly told us that he was nothing but a drunk and a ne'er do well. They really stay in character and Jim had fun telling her things that would happen in the future, much to her "astonishment."

Barking powder? I think the printer might have been asleep on this one. Look at the antique can of chocolates from Ganongs.

Beautiful in the summer, but the Loyalists would have endured some harsh winters.

We meandered along to the church...

It really is a beautiful setting...

Time for a lunch stop at the pub. The food was quite good, although a little too pricey. It is a tourist attraction!

Enjoying our day...

Kings Landing has a Visiting Cousins program where children can live at the settlement for a week and learn things like sewing and baking as they did it years ago. They attend school and this would have been one of their breaks. What a great opportunity to take kids away from computers and technology for a week and get back to basics. Many of them have done it for several summers.

Ahh...the horse and buggy. This time we were glad to hop on board.

The horses brought us back to the starting point, saving us a long uphill walk. It was a great visit and we would highly recommend it.

The sunset that evening was a great end to a lovely day.