Billings Estate Museum, Heritage estate museum in Alta Vista Ward, Ottawa, Canada.
The Billings Estate Museum is a museum in Ottawa's Alta Vista Ward, housed in Park Hill, a large wood-framed house built between 1827 and 1829 by Braddish Billings. The site also holds a historic cemetery with graves dating back to 1820 and a collection of over 13,000 artifacts, most kept at a storage facility at the Routhier Community Centre.
Braddish Billings established the property in the early 19th century, and his family lived there across four generations. The city of Ottawa eventually took ownership and opened it to the public as a museum.
The estate's cemetery holds graves dating back to 1820, including those of the Billings family and other early settlers of Gloucester Township. The museum also cares for over 13,000 artifacts, most kept in storage at the Routhier Community Centre and shown during Doors Open Ottawa in early June.
The museum is open Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 17:00, from mid-May to the end of October; the rest of the year it runs activities listed on its website, including summer children's programmes. An accessible audio guide is available. The site is at 2100 Cabot Street, and the artifact storage facility at the Routhier Community Centre opens during Doors Open Ottawa in early June.
The wood-frame house on the property is considered the oldest surviving structure of its kind in Ottawa. Much of the interior furnishing dates from the time the Billings family actually lived there and was never substantially altered.
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