Guelph Antique Carousel

Last year I was still chasing down old carousels, the wooden ones, that were within day trip striking distance of Toronto. I had already done some research and found out that I had missed one of what I thought of as a 'major' installation, although a minor one (that's supposed to be a joke) nearby.

I had also just financed a new used car and wanted to take it out on a road trip. My son Elliot came along for the ride.

It was a beautiful summer day for a drive. We hit the road and headed in the direction of Guelph, Ontario. I had some printed directions and knew a bit about the layout of the city and so with only a little bit of head scratching and paper consulting (no GPS here, GPS is for sissies) managed to locate the carousel and, at the same location, a small replica train that gives rides around the park.

So the carousel is one manufactured by the Allan Herschell Company (you can tell by the features of many of the animals) and was likely constructed around 1919, at least that's the year painted on the outside wall of the pavilion. There's a bit more information that can be gleaned on-line about where the city of Guelph got it and so on.

The funny thing, at least to me, is that I used to live here, in Guelph, way back when (talking the 70's here), around the time the carousel was purchased.

The carousel is in fairly good shape, considering it's age and the fact that it is still very much a working carousel. I'm sure there are those who would like to see a little bit more funding for the care and restoration of the horses except we seem to be living in the time of the bean counter, where art and culture are often pitted against the bottom lines of city budgets.

 Still it was nice to see. There was one thing that was a bit of a distraction for me and an indicator of possible funding and maintenance issues. Some of the horses once had actual horse hair tails but that day I visited all that was left were threadbare (more like 'hairbare' but I don't think it's a word) butt plugs.

To be honest I don't really know if it was caused by a lack of restoration funds, the lack of horse hair on the market, age, vandalism, or, as is likely, a combination of all the above factors.

 And thereby ends a tail.

The Herschell Carrousel Museum

My brother Ralph holding up the building

I took over 300 shots that day, many of the photographs turned out very well and, as is always the case, some did not. I was working with the ‘available gloom’ (a term I may have mentioned in a previous posting). I do this for a couple of reasons, the first one being that they did not allow flash in the museum display area (which was okay by me). The second reason is that sans flash is the way I like to photograph carousels and horses. Flash reflects too much light off the painted surfaces of the horses (and other animals) and it can be distracting and changes the nature of the photographs. So I don’t use flash if I can, but it often makes hand holding the camera in some of the dimmer interiors a bit of a dicey proposition. Expecting shots to be both in focus and without blur from my own involuntary movement becomes an added element.

Thanks to the digital revolution I don’t have to put in a new roll of film every few minutes and I can shoot a lot, which I like to do.

I know, get on with the story. Sheesh, give me a minute.

So we arrived at this bright red building and spent a while photographing us in front of it. For the first time I noticed that it appeared that one of the words on the signage, carrousel, had an extra ‘r’ in it. Inside the building I saw a third version of the word spelled carousselles. I haven’t yet traced back the reason for the other two versions of the spelling. 

Me.

Anyway we came, we saw, we went inside. I don't know what the Latin translation for that would be.

The hallway where we entered

The Gift Shop

We entered the hallway between buildings and went first into the souvenir shop (the ticket booth hadn’t opened yet) where I paid our admission fees (very reasonable) and received our tokens for the ride. I asked the question of whether Herschell worked for Parker to the woman running the gift shop. I was told that he did not (and they should know, right?); the horses were purchased by the Parker Company to be put onto some of their carousels.

Then we took our brochures and started to explore the site and the cluster of interconnected buildings.

We first entered the display room (formerly the paint room) where horses and other animals spanning a number of years and a number of different styles were set up. I think all of these are works of art in their own right. Some were fairly plain, others had considerable ornate detail.

Most of the displays were of the wooden creations although an exception was one very pretty horse on display at one end of the room that was made from fiberglass (the mould sitting close by).

Next to it, beside the door and looking out the window, was a wooden horse that I became quite enchanted with. If you look at it you will see that it has quite an elongated head. In fact the Herschell Company became known for the production of these types of horses so my joke about the bartender saying ‘why the long face?’ is not so out of place after all.

Ads and information about different aspects of carousels, the animals, the history adorned the walls. I admit to not reading all the stuff. I was too focused (ha ha) on my camera and what it was seeing. I’d like, in the not too distant future, to go back and actually read all the info, take all the tours, and watch all the demo videos.

And as I mentioned there were not just horses, there were other animals on display.

We went through the door at the other end of the display room into the workshop area. As you entered, almost straight ahead, was an exhibition area showing the machines and process for making music rolls, and examples of Wurlitzer band organs and a barrel organ from the North Tonawanda Barrel Organ Company with a pegged barrel on display. There was actually a major connection between the Herschell Armitage Company and the Wurlitzer Company. Those interested in the details of both the band-organs and barrel-organs I’ll leave you to ferret out the details. Here’s a hint though, it has something to do with a guy named Eugene de Kleist.

North Tonawanda barrel organ

Pinned barrel roll in foreground, machines for manufacturing music rolls in the background.

To the right of this was the woodcarver display area. The machinery here was all belt driven and must have been incredibly noisy in it’s day. There were tools and patterns and segments of half completed horses on display. It would have been cool to wander in the space to get a closer look.

Backtracking our way through the display area again I asked Ralph to take this photo of me talking to the large headed horse through the window.

Then out to the main hallway, down the hall, and into the ‘play room’ (actually the old machine shop of the factory) with its 1950’s kiddie carousel.

This was the place where I had the most difficulty getting good shots. It was fairly dark in here and the fencing around the ride itself prevented me from getting as close as I’d have liked to the ride so that I could focus more on some of the horses there. Still it was very pretty.

Back out, down the hall again, and through another hallway with a couple of exhibits of other rides and attractions that were built by the company in a later incarnation.

Hanging from the rafters was one such ‘ride’ that I was particularly drawn to and what I think of as the rocket swing. Very Buck Rogers.

I shot it from a couple of different angles and had to shoot it from the inside of the ticket booth (in the above shot to the right) to get the perspective I wanted. I intended to send a copy of it to my friend Sid who is a big Sci Fi buff. Well, actually I thought I’d like to play around with the shot a bit before I sent it to him. Okay, let me show you.

Sid in space

The hallway led to the eighteen-sided roundhouse, formerly the assembly and testing site of the rides, and now the home of the quite impressive 1916 #1 Special carrousel. According to the brochure, ‘that was one of the first three made at and shipped out of this factory’. And then it came back home, full circle.

The lead horse

Wow. The factory was worth the trip all on its own, but here was the icing on the cake.

I'm sorry, sometimes the horses look quite mad.

My brother and I got a chance to ride it and to photograph extensively, and again, partly because it wasn’t very busy that day, we got to wander into the centre and see the wheels and gearing (that is normally hidden from public view in the centre of most carousels), and, of course, check out the band organ, another vintage Wurlitzer.

After a while, still grinning from the experience, we went out the door at the other end of the roundhouse and into the loading dock where the shipping department was located.

This is where I took the shot of the carousel horse graveyard. I always look for the odd.

The carousel horse graveyard

Then back through much of the complex taking other pictures, other variations.

And I frequented the gift shop for a couple of souvenirs: a cup and a painted cutout of the actual frontage of the building. My brother purchased one of those punched out wooden carousel kits for me, which was nice of him. It provided hours of muffled mumbled profanity in its assembling and gluing.

Oh, I meant to mention that while I was in the main ‘hallway’ the gentleman who had run the carousel (and allowed Ralph and I to keep our wooden tokens as souvenirs) asked me if I had gotten enough photographs. I answered, and in a way it’s true, never enough. You always see new things, new vantage points, new photographic opportunities coming and going. The shot of the horse looking out of the window, one I’m particularly fond of, is one I took as we were gearing up to leave.

But hey, maybe I can talk my brother into going back again, and then maybe we could head out for pastures new, or in this case ‘carousels new’.

I started this piece by saying that things, carousels included, seem to come around. I also started discussing the carousel that I had photographed (and had later tried to paint) in Springband Park in London, Ontario. Well, and here’s a kicker for you, the Alan Herschell Carrousel Factory, acquired their ‘Number One Special Three Abreast portable carousel’ from London, yes in Ontario. This was probably the same carousel that I had seen all those years ago. And we met again.

It's a small world but you wouldn't want to do it's laundry.