'It took eight years but we won': Newmarket woman, 100, who led fight to save clock tower up for award

Margaret Davis and Gordon Prentice nominated for Architectural Conservancy Ontario award

Yorkregion.com
Oct. 14, 2022
Lisa Queen

For almost a decade, Newmarket residents Margaret Davis and Gordon Prentice helped lead a campaign of 1,200 residents fighting a highrise development project that threatened Main Street’s heritage.

Today, they find out if they win an award from Architectural Conservancy Ontario (ACO) for their efforts.

Davis, who turned 100 on June 24, and Prentice, a candidate for deputy mayor in the Oct. 24 municipal election, are nominated for the A.K. Sculthorpe Award for Advocacy “for their unwavering campaign against the clock tower project in Newmarket and demolition of the (town’s) Main Street heritage.”

The award will be presented Oct. 13.

“Over eight years, from 2011 to 2019, Margaret Davis and Gordon Prentice campaigned against a project that would have overwhelmed Newmarket’s 1914 Post Office and reduced part of the town’s historic Main Street to facades,” a statement from the ACO said.

“After a hard-fought fight that included lobbying and speaking to council, setting up an ACO branch and working with other local groups, the project was terminated in 2019 by an agreement between the town and the developer.

While the town made a $100,000 grant available to help with the restoration of the post office and other heritage buildings the developer owned, sadly, other historical buildings were destroyed.

“On Oct. 9, 2019, the Charles Hargrave Simpson House, built in 1850 and home of Ontario’s first female druggist, Mary Simpson (1886-1914), was unlawfully demolished,” the ACO said.

“The town decided not to bring a prosecution against the developer but fined him $100,000 and withdrew the $100,000 grant, which was to go toward the cost of the restoration of his heritage buildings. It ordered a rebuild of the Simpson House to heritage standards, restoration of the others that were suffering from demolition by neglect and an acknowledgment of unauthorized demolition.”

The clock tower is now being converted into a boutique hotel called the Postmark Hotel, expected to open next spring.

Davis has made it clear the fight for Main Street’s heritage was a worthy battle.

“I wish I had a dollar for every time someone told us developers always win and we were wasting our time,” she said.

“It took eight years, but we won.”