Old City in Guelph in Wellington County, Ontario — Central Canada (North America)
Joseph Connolly 1840 - 1904
Photographed by Tim Boyd, September 1, 2025
1. Joseph Connolly 1840 - 1904 Marker
Inscription.
This prominent Ontario architect was born in Ireland and received his professional training there under J. J. McCarthy, a leading nineteenth century Catholic church architect. By the early 1860s Connolly had settled at Toronto where he soon established a special practice designing buildings for the burgeoning Roman Catholic community across Ontario. This church, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception (1876), in the style of the thirteenth century French Gothic, is one of his earliest known structures and is widely considered to be his finest. Among the other religious buildings Connolly designed are the James Street Baptist Church (1879), in Hamilton, one of his few Protestant structures, and St. Peter's Cathedral-Basilica in London (1880). Connolly also designed industrial and residential buildings as part of his extensive practice.
80° 15.065′ W. Marker is in Guelph, Ontario, in Wellington County. It is in Old City. It can be reached from Norfolk Street, on the left when traveling north. The marker is near the front (west side) of Our Lady Immaculate Basilica. It is accessible by foot from its parking lot, entered from Cork Street West. It can also be accessed by climbing the steps from Norfolk Street, directly in front of the basilica. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 28 Norfolk Street, Guelph ON N1H 4H8, Canada. Touch for directions.
Regionally, this marker is in the Huron-Perth-Waterloo-Wellington Area and in Southwestern Ontario. It is also in Central Canada. Globally, it is in North America, the Western Hemisphere, the Western World, and the Anglosphere. Historically, it finds itself in what was once a British colony, the Viceroyalty of New France, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, and Rupert’s Land.
The marker is indicated by the arrow, affixed to a concrete base facing the Canadian Government marker dedicated to the basilca. This is directly in front of the church.
Credits. This page was last revised on September 11, 2025. It was originally submitted on September 11, 2025, by Tim Boyd of Hamilton, Ontario. This page has been viewed 76 times since then and 28 times this year. Photos:1, 2, 3. submitted on September 11, 2025, by Tim Boyd of Hamilton, Ontario. • Andrew Ruppenstein was the editor who published this page.
