Monument Works

Albert Seaman's Paintings, Drawings and Essays

The old Brampton Monument Works

Watercolour on Arches 140 lb HP paper. Image size 12" (30.5 cm) by 16" (40.6 cm) © 1988

A good time to collect photographic records of buildings is shortly after a snowfall. The light is reflected into areas which would be submerged in shadow at any other time, allowing the lens to see a great deal more detail than would otherwise be possible. One Sunday afternoon, after the ploughs had cleared enough of the morning's snowfall, I decided to tour the downtown area of Brampton to collect some more record shots of old buildings. Parked cars are usually a problem in obtaining clear views of buildings, but on that occasion, people seemed to prefer the comforts of home rather than the mess outside. In passing along Queen Street, just west of Main Street, the structure in the painting above caught my eye. If buildings can display feelings, and I am sure that they can, this one portrayed the epitome of sadness and despair. For that reason alone, I took a few shots for the record.

A couple of weeks later, I discovered that the building had originally housed the old Brampton Monument Works, before that company had moved to other premises. I only remembered it as a used clothing store and a café, before it became abandoned altogether. It probably had other uses prior to that as well. Certainly, in its original form, it provided a necessary service to the community. At its location near to the downtown core, it suffered from the usual spring flooding before the river was diverted into the present culvert. There is an old photograph in the Peel Archives showing this section of Queen Street West completely under water. The level of the flood reached almost halfway up the front windows of this building.

Here, obviously, was a subject for my series of paintings of old Brampton commercial buildings. Armed with sketch pad, notebook and other necessary paraphernalia, I headed off to the site to get some more details of the old place. But it wasn't there! In the intervening two weeks it had been demolished, and I don't suppose that required too much effort. Consequently, I had to paint the picture in the studio from what information I already had. And here it is.

Picture status - Available.