Heather Wright/The Independent

Campbell House is coming down this week. But the home’s history will be preserved with a virtual tour.

The St. Clair Region Conservation Authority confirms the historic home of Archie Campbell, who donated the land for the Alvinston conservation area, is being demolished Wednesday and Thursday. Early Tuesday morning, the authority’s social media feed announced the park would be closed for two days because heavy equipment would be in use there.

The fate of the historic farm house hung in the balance since Oct. 2021 when the conservation authority said the home was beyond repair. 

The decision to demolish the building was put on hold after Friends of Campbell Park formed. It hoped to save the house built in 1867 which was home to the Campbell Family until Archie died. He donated the surrounding 300 acres of land to the the SCRCA’s predecessor.

After waiting two years for the group to take action, SCRCA board members agreed to ask Brooke-Alvinston council for a demolition permit in 2023 The request was turned down prompting a threat to take the issue to the Ontario Land Tribunal.

Brooke-Alvinston officials met with the conservation authority to talk about repairing the building and returning it to a public space. But the cost of the plan ranged between $500,000 and $1.3 million. Those costs would have been borne by the municipality.

Council didn’t relent, voting again to deny the demo permit in November 2023. Just days later, they reversed their decision, clearing the way for the demolition.

Originally, conservation authority officials had said the house would come down in the fall of 2025 after the camping season ended.

But the demolition was delayed because the home was designated as a historic building – it’s one of the last farmhouses of its style in Lambton.

Conservation Area Manager Greg Wilcox said the authority had to do its due dilegence before the county would grant the demolition permit.

“We’ve had some work to do to meet all the requirements for our demolition permit.We had to get an additional study done and submit a package to the county just to make sure we had everything we needed for our approval,” he said.

Before this week’s demolition, the authority worked with the Lambton county to remove any artifacts from the building to preserve as much history that was possible. That included taking video of the house.

There are plans to place a marker in the area to explain Archie Campbell’s gift to the community.

“It’ll have a QR code to we’re developing some additional historical content for the website… that’s something that’ll be done later in 2026,” said Wilcox.

“We’re working on a virtual tour of the inside of the house. We’ve already done that sort of imaging, and… we were gathering historic any photos we have.”

Wilcox added it will be “like a walk through of a house you would do a virtual tour on a real estate listing.”