Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Bell Homestead · Photo: Harry Zilber · CC BY-SA 3.0More of Brantford’s homes are old than in most towns: 33% before 1961, against 18%. Go back to 1858 and you reach Bell Homestead, the oldest of them. Measured against its size, Brantford’s 0.5 per 10,000 residents puts it ahead of 74% of Canadian towns. Counted by designation, there are 2 provincial or municipal listings, a Recognized Federal Heritage Building and a heritage railway station.
Bell Homestead and St. Jude's Anglican Church lead the set. All of Brantford’s designated places are pictured. 3 of Brantford’s places also have old views on their own pages.
St. Jude's Anglican Church
Armoury
Sanderson Centre for the Performing Arts
Canadian National Railways Station, Brantford, Ontario
Bell Telephone Memorial+1See all photosPhotos from Wikimedia Commons, each credited to its photographer with its licence; names open the place’s page. Tap a photo to step through them full screen.
Here in time order: 6 old photographs of the town, along with the oldest views of 3 of its historic places. Pick a dot to see the year; pick a picture to see it large.
c. 1906
c. 1909
c. 1911
1914
c. 1919
c. 1919
c. 1919
c. 1919
c. 1922Public domain or CC0, made before 1950, from Wikimedia Commons; old views of places can be drawings, prints or maps of their time. Each credit opens the image’s page.
On the open record, Brantford as a municipality goes back to May 31, 1877, though that may be a charter rather than a first settlement. Brantford railway station, the earliest station on record, opened in 1905.
Every place on the registers inside the town, by its designation.
Dots open their places’ pages; hover first to read the name.
Most entries are federal, from Parks Canada’s Directory of Federal Heritage Designations; local listings outside Québec are known only through Wikidata items with an article.
Points from Wikidata (Parks Canada’s files carry none) and from Québec’s register, as mapped there.
The first was designated in 1994, the latest in 1997. National Historic Sites and Classified Federal Heritage Buildings, Canada’s highest federal recognition. They date from 1858 (Bell Homestead) to 1871. Each one opens its own page.
They date from 1893 (Armoury) to 1905. Here that means a Recognized Federal Heritage Building and a heritage railway station. Recognized Federal Heritage Buildings, heritage railway stations and lighthouses. Each one opens its own page.
Provincial and municipal listings that Wikidata records and an encyclopedia describes. They date from 1917 (Bell Telephone Memorial) to 1919. Each one opens its own page.
Each place by the first construction date on its record.
One of the 6 dated places was built before Confederation.
Over half of the homes in Brantford were already standing by 1981. Homes built from 2016 to 2021 are 4.7% of Brantford’s, about the typical 4.1%. 30% of Brantford’s homes were built from 1961 to 1980, close to the typical town’s 27%.
2021 Census, private dwellings by period of construction (Statistics Canada); the typical town is the middle Canadian town of 2,500 or more.
21 of the 33 were born in the decades after Confederation. Counting only births before 1914, there are 33. The first on the line is Margaret Girvin Gillin (1833). Of them all, Joseph Algernon Pearce lived longest: 95 years, until 1988. The timeline shows the 20 best known.
Everyone born in Brantford → Born before 1914. Birthplaces from Wikidata, each checked against Wikipedia; national historic persons from Parks Canada’s Directory of Federal Heritage Designations, matched by name and life years.
| Town | People | Places | Highest | Oldest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brantford | 123,521 | 6 | 2 | 1858 |
| Paris | 45,565 | 4 | 3 | 1830 |
| Six Nations (Part) 40 | 7,298 | 2 | 2 | 1785 |
| Lynden | 10,442 | 0 | 0 | — |
Housing in Brantford includes 33% built before 1961, against 18% in the typical town. The lists come to 6 historic places, 2 with the highest designation. Of the 6 with a date, 3 come from the decades after Confederation. Lawren Harris (1885), Bill Cook (1896) and Sara Jeannette Duncan (1861) are the best known of its historic lives. For the rest, it has 6 historic places, about typical for a town its size (the middle one has 5); and the designations ran from 1990 to 1997.
33% of its homes were built before 1961, against 18% in the typical Canadian town.
They are Bell Homestead and St. Jude's Anglican Church.
Bell Homestead, a National Historic Site, begun in 1858.
Its province’s and council’s own lists can’t be reused here; 43 further listings in Brantford show up only as Wikidata numbers.
Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada (Parks Canada).
Sources: Parks Canada, Directory of Federal Heritage Designations · Canadian Register of Historic Places (federal extract) · Wikidata (CC0) for map points, other names and articles · Statistics Canada, 2021 Census (homes by period of construction). Under the Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Adapted from Statistics Canada (Census of Population 2021, population estimates 2025, 2021 census boundaries) under the Statistics Canada Open Licence; this does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada. Neighbourhood names in some cities © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
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