(located at Royal Botanical Gardens)
The Hendrie Gates commemorate William Hendrie, who was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1831, and who emigrated as a young man to Hamilton, Ontario, where he established a successful business hauling freight between the new railway lines and local shippers and receivers. His business success was matched by his success as a breeder of racing horses: indeed, one wing of the Hamilton General Hospital was built with the winnings on his horse Martimas in the Futurity Stakes.
In 1931, to celebrate the centenary of Hendriers birth, his son George Muir Hendrie gave to the City of Hamilton 122 acres of the historic Hendrie horse breeding farm, to be a public park. This is now part of the Royal Botanical Gardens. At the same time, Frederick John Flatman was commissioned “to design and build a magnificent set of wrought iron gates, to be used in construcying an entrance marker to Hendrie Park”.
Flatman was not only a distinguished craftsman, but a socialist labour leader and journalist .
Flatman was a master craftsman iron worker who had apprenticed in his native England. In Canada he worked mostly as a blacksmith, but he rose to the challenge of this magnificent commission. His iron was imported from Sweden, since he apparently thought the iron produced locally was not good enough. His design was adapted from the gates to “The Backs” at Trinity College in Cambridge, England. These gates had been presented to Trinity College 200 years earlier, and had originally come from Horseheath Hall. Flatman added to the Hendrie Gates hammered copper embellishments symbolic of their New World setting: a sheaf of Durham wheat, a cluster of Niagara grapes, a horseshoe. The craftsmanship of his wrought iron work is distinguished. He also supervised the proper hanging of the gates, “so that a child may easily open and shut them with one hand”.
In 1992 the gates were restored by Lloyd Johnston, Restoration Blacksmith, at Beaverton, Ontario. The wrought iron was sandblasted and painted with rust inhibitive glossy enamel black paint. The brass and copper ornaments were restored and some missing pieces fabricated from a stamp custom-made by Lloyd Johnston. The hinges were re-crafted to enable the gates to be opened easily despite their great weight. The restoration was assisted by grants from the Community Heritage Fund and a Designated Property Grant.
