A documentary video series about historic Norfolk County buildings is turning its focus to Simcoe.
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The Building History series is produced by Rainey Media Inc. with the help of Norfolk County Heritage and Culture with financial support from Progressive Realty Group Inc.
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Video producer Dean Rainey said many people are curious about old buildings in Norfolk communities and the videos are a means to shed light on their history.
“Each building has its own episode,” Rainey said. “We have done three episodes in Waterford, and now we’re doing three in Simcoe. They run about seven to 10 minutes each.”
One Simcoe building to be featured is on the west side of Colborne Street opposite Wellington Park.
“There is this big, old white building that looks like a factory. It looks really old and sometimes forgotten,” he said. “It was a foundry but is apartments now.
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“At one time it was built to house Norfolk’s first and largest brewery. Then it was bought and turned into a foundry making (material) for the World Wars.”
It later became Stalker Engineering, which did design work for the Alligator Tug project in Simcoe in the early 1900s.
“We’re in production right now with the second day of filming on Wednesday,” noted Rainey. “The first in this series will be released in the first week of June.”
Port Dover and Delhi are communities that are on the horizon for future episodes.
“We may go back to Waterford for more,” he said. “The response has been incredible. Ig’s a small audience target — the community — but these are getting 20,000 views each with lots of comments, engagements, and people starting conversations and remembering things.”
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Daryl Rainey, broker for Progressive Realty Group Inc. explained that towns like Waterford are growing quickly with new people moving to the area.
“We thought it would be a fun way for these newcomers to learn the history of the town’s buildings,” he observed.
The first three episodes in Waterford examined the Waterford Appliance building that was once a movie theater; Collar. York’s historic home; and the Golden Pond Retirement Home that was originally a hotel.
“We’re really excited to tell these stories,” said James Christison, curator of the Waterford Heritage and Agricultural Museum (WHAM) who narrated portions of the videos. “We’ve included photos and images that very few people have seen before. We even crowd sourced some of the photos from people with connections to the buildings.”
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Joshua Klar, curator at the Norfolk Archives will provide a narrative for the Simcoe videos, along with sound bites from current owners of the featured buildings.
Along with the former foundry, the former Simcoe Armory on Robinson Street and The Blue Elephant Artisan Brewery were chosen for the latest installations.
The series is hosted on the social media pages for WHAM, Norfolk Heritage and Culture, and Progressive Realty.
“These short documentaries will also be included in our archives so that these stories are recorded and preserved for future generations,” said Norfolk Heritage and Culture director Melissa Collver.
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