A 10 minutes drive from the Inner Harbour, Craigdarroch Castle is one of Victoria Canada’s most legendary landmarks. This Victorian style mansion rises four and a half stories tall, contains most of its original furnishings from the 1890′s, and has some of the most beautiful stained-glass windows and woodwork I have personally seen.

There are two main ways to get there. If you decide to walk, you can go straight to the entrance of the landmark without any problems. However, if you are bussed (what we did), you’ll be dropped a couple blocks away and have to walk the rest of the distance to the entrance. For some reason, buses are restricted from driving through the neighborhood in which the castle is located.

The tour through the castle itself is self guided and took us approximately an hour to complete. Before entering the castle please be aware that all food, drinks, and gum must be thrown away and that they will require you to clean your shoes with a special machine before entering the structure. Once inside, the hosts at the entrance will provide a map to assist you through the many rooms and floors, and you’ll be required to travel about four flights of steps to see everything.

Overall, this is one of those places you’d probably visit once just to say that you’ve been there. Walking through hallways was definitely a very surreal experience. I would suggest however that you leave young children with someone else if you decide to take this tour. There are many stairs which may lead to accidents as well as furnishings that should be handled with care that young children might get their hands on.

History: (Source)

Located a short drive or a leisurely walk from the downtown harbour, just off Fort Street at 1050 Joan Crescent, Victoria, BC, Canada, Craigdarroch Castle is a beautiful historic Victorian-era mansion, built in the 1890s by wealthy BC coal baron Robert Dunsmuir. It is now owned by the Craigdarroch Castle Historical Museum Society and almost totally funded by its 150,000 annual visitors.

Craigdarroch Castle was built as the home of Robert Dunsmuir, the richest man in nineteenth century British Columbia.

The Castle was designed by Portland, Oregon architect, Warren H. Williams. Williams died only four months after construction began on the Castle. The responsibility for building Craigdarroch Castle was given to and successfully completed by Williams’ associate, Arthur L. Smith in 1890.

The Drawing Room features hand-painted and stencilled ceiling decoration with lions’ heads, garlands, birds and bouquets. The Entrance Hall and Dining Room are panelled with rich golden oak imported from Chicago. The Castle’s windows represent the largest and finest in-situ collection of residential stained glass in Canada.