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Thursday 11am - 12pm 1pm - 2pm Friday 11am - 12pm 1pm - 2pm Saturday 2pm - 3pm

Ross Bay Villa

Name: Ross Bay Villa
Address: 1490 Fairfield Road, Victoria, BC, V8S1E8, CA
Telephone: +12505981803
Price range: $
Rating: 4.3

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Victoria, BC
Ross Bay Villa

An 1865 Historic House Museum, restored and run by Ross Bay Villa Society’s volunteers. Events & lectures monthly.
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Tours available on Saturdays at 2PM, and Thursdays and Fridays at 11AM and 1PM. Book ahead via https://tinyurl.com/RossBayVillaTours

08/26/2026

Our volunteers love the periwinkle wallpaper pattern that hangs on the walls of the Villa’s restored children’s bedroom. It represents a huge amount of research and labour to recreate the original pattern and produce new wallpaper using a silkscreen. This is one of over 100 patterns found during restoration.

Last Saturday, we mixed fabric ink by hand and brought out the silkscreen again, with a skilled volunteer teaching others to use it. This time, we made tea towels! A thick layer of paint was applied at one end of the screen, and a rubber blade drawn firmly across the screen, transferring the colour through the open parts of the patterns to apply the wallpaper design to the cloth below. The screen was carefully pulled away, which is probably the most satisfying part of the process, as you see the completed pattern underneath. The towels were then laid out carefully on the grass with pebbles at the corners to prevent them blowing away.

Next week, we’ll iron them to ensure the ink is set. Once they’re finished off, they’ll go into our gift shop for truly one of a kind souvenirs!

08/19/2026

“….from layette to mound/a lifetime of linen/laps us round…..”

On September 17th, 7:30PM, at Ross Bay Villa Historic House Museum, join two textile experts for an in-depth look at one of Nature’s finest fibres. Queen Victoria herself was known to have taken up linen spinning as a hobby, and Victorian women with aspirations to gentility would have worn nothing but linen next to their skin. However, linen is a fibre with an even deeper history. From Ariadne to the Egyptians, from royal garments to cruise wear, the production of the fibre that wrapped Egyptian mummies and produced the finest damask tablecloths has not changed over thousands of years. It can be spun for lace, or for weaving into cool hypo-allergenic bedsheets.

Please join us for an illustrated talk and demonstration by Beatrice Keizers and Brenda Nicolson, two of the founding members of Flax to Linen Victoria. They will lead us on an exploration of this process, taking you from seed to shirt as we see flax being processed in person. Beatrice is very fortunate to be the third generation of a textile-loving family. Her father was a tailor and through him, her grandmother, mother, and aunt she learned the joy of sewing and crochet, knitting, spinning and weaving. Beatrice has been exploring and teaching all things linen for sixteen years. Brenda grew up on a grain farm outside of Saskatoon, and now lives in Victoria, BC, near her family. Her interests in “things Medieval” and working with her hands led her into working with fibre since 1986.

Tickets are $15, and as space is limited must be purchased in advance at https://tinyurl.com/Flax2Linen. All funds raised support the volunteer based Ross Bay Villa Society, which is dedicated to the conservation, restoration and maintenance of Ross Bay Villa Historic House Museum.

08/14/2026

Buttons and bows oh my! Come enjoy our Gift Shop in the Garden’s summer clothing sale this Saturday from 10AM to 2PM. We offer a large variety of items including mens and womens wear, shoes, scarfs and much much more. All summer related items will be only 1$ each! Come and stock next year's summer closet with some lovely finds. All proceeds support Ross Bay Villa, a volunteer owned historic house museum.

07/27/2026

Fake food made by our volunteers is on display at the Sidney Museum!

07/16/2026

As many historians can attest, women's history is often overshadowed and dismissed as can be the case with social history in general. Every day life can appear less thrilling than the major events which define a period. However, to truly understand our past one must attempt to see the world through the eyes of our ancestors. What better way to accomplish this than through the small daily routines which guided their lives? At Ross Bay Villa, we use our restored 1865 historic home to explore the past of our city.

Household management was (as in many ages) predominantly the responsibility of women in the Victorian period. It was common for English ladies to learn the expectation of the home from their mothers and grandmothers. However, for women like Mrs. Roscoe, who had immigrated far from their home, there was no such ease of knowledge transfer between family members.

Anna Letitia Le Breton Roscoe left England with Frank Roscoe in 1864, moving that same year to Victoria. Not only was she faced with settling into a completely different environment than that of England, but also was charged with the responsibility of running the entirety of Ross Bay Villa a year later.

How was a lady to do this with no family to help? The answer, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, a valuable primary source for our volunteers to reimagine the dedication and labour expected of a Victorian middle-class woman.

Published in 1861, Mrs. Beeton offers a detailed manual regarding cookery, dining etiquette, direction in managing servants, entertaining guests and even outlines the proper manners expected of a Victorian lady.

Mrs. Beeton states, “as with the Commander of an Army, or the leader of an enterprise, so is it with the mistress of a house. Her spirit will be seen through the whole establishment.” It is thus
the Villa’s intention to bring forth the spirit of Mrs. Roscoe as best we can. What would you like to know about Victorian household management?

National Trust for Canada / Fiducie nationale du Canada

07/11/2026

From July 11th to 25th is Historic Places Days in Canada!

This year's theme is communication through place and time, a concept which we think perfectly encapsulates the Villa’s commitment to preserving Canada’s social, cultural and architectural heritage. Through the hard work and dedication of our volunteers, the Villa has been restored not only to preserve the architectural beauty of the Gothic revival style, but also to reflect the social customs and ideals embedded in the very design of a Victorian home.

Trompe-l'œil (a French term meaning to ‘trick the eye’) was a very common artistic and architectural technique used by the middle class in the Victorian era. Typically, a gentleman's hallway would have been lined with ceramic tile. However, such material was simply too expensive and impractical for the Roscoes to acquire. Thus, the flooring in the entrance to the Villa is an example of artistic deception; oil cloth made to appear as if it were ceramic tiles. Our volunteers have recreated this Victorian technique by stenciling and hand painting 28 layers of cloth, varnish and paint.

Not only that, but the wallpaper lining the hallway is another example of Trompe-l'œil. An English gentleman's home would feature fine materials such as English oak, but with only one sawmill in the area and English oak nowhere to be found, this material was also out of reach. Thus, the Roscoes used what they had available to retain this sense of English style. The reproduction wallpaper was handmade by our volunteers, featuring 128 separate panels using a special tool known as a grainer to apply the wood-like pattern!

The design story of the Roscoe family conveys both personal taste and the developing social history of newly arriving European Canadians. The English middle class brought many of their own customs and traditions to Canada, but ones which experienced inevitable change to meet the demands of their new environment.

Ross Bay Villa stands as a testament to the communicative power of space which all heritage sites represent and welcomes visitors to come and experience this living moment in Canadian history.
National Trust for Canada / Fiducie nationale du Canada

07/10/2026

“Come take up your Hats, and away let us haste
To the Butterfly’s Ball, and the Grasshopper’s
Feast.
The Trumpeter, Gad-fly, has summon’d the
Crew,
And the Revels are now only waiting for you.”

Butterflies and Bees, oh my! William Roscoe, the grandfather of Frank Roscoe, would have been very happy to know so many critters still enjoy his grandson’s garden after 161 years! The Author of The Butterfly’s Ball and The Grasshopper’s Feast, William Roscoe was a well-known author and botanist with an air of whimsy for the natural world. The original poem, written in 1808, was only 4” x 5” and was the precursor and inspiration for Beatrix Potter’s famously tiny books “suitable for small hands.” Beatrix Potter was in fact the Roscoe children’s cousin by marriage!

As the poem proclaims, the revels of Ross Bay Villa await! Follow the butterflies and enjoy the gardens during the Villa’s extended summer tours offered every Thursday and Friday at 11am and 1pm as well as on Saturday at 2pm or during our annual Garden party on July 12th from 1-4pm.

07/08/2026

At our upcoming Garden Party this Sunday, we look forward to having Max Francis perform with his fiddle.

Max is prodigiously talented, and at his young age he has already attained a Canadian Folk Music award, The BC Fiddle Championship, The Canadian Grand Masters, Platinum Standard for classical composition at the National Music Festival, Soloist with the Victoria Symphony and the Emily Carr String Quartet. If that wasn’t enough, Max has also produced a CD called HOME. He wrote all the tunes, played all the instruments and recorded the album in his home.

Come listen to his beautiful music while having a cup of tea and cake on our lawn. Sunday, July 12, 1-4.

Address

1490 Fairfield Road
Victoria, BC
V8S1E8

Opening Hours

Thursday	11am - 12pm
	1pm - 2pm
Friday	11am - 12pm
	1pm - 2pm
Saturday	2pm - 3pm

Telephone

+12505981803

Website

http://rossbayvilla.org/

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