1

After the Hudson Bay Company ceased to use the manor as a recreation center, it was leased by a Mr. Horace Newton, the president of the Victoria Phoenix Brewery, who used the building to set up a camp for girls on the property. The girl's camp was run from 1925 until 1936.

The Manor was used to house the girls and they stayed on in dormitories of four to eight girls per room. Mr. Newton's camp was every weekend throughout the school year, and daily during the summer. One former camper, Jean Lamorte, remembers her year here very fondly. Mr. Newton was a kind man, making sure that the campers had every possible advantage during the Great Depression, when many children were not so fortunate. She fondly remembers being taught to swim, boat, horse ride and play lawn tennis at the site. He paid for everything, and the girls had all that they needed provided before they even had to ask.

2

Jean Lamorte talks about being a camper at Mr. Newton's Girls Camp
9 July 2006
Craigflower, View Royal, Victoria, Canada

3

Since it was the Great Depression, Mr. Newton was careful to make sure that there was always enough food for all of the girls, and they could help themselves. All meals required that the children ate two helpings, which was far more than most of them were accustomed to eating. At the time it was a struggle for many of them to eat so much more than they had at home! The dining room and kitchen were upstairs in the Manor, in the two back rooms that once had been bedrooms which belonged to the boys during the McKenzies' residence at Craigflower.

4

Following the era of Mr. Newton's camp the farm was taken from the Hudson's Bay Company in order to pay the back taxes owed to Esquimalt Township on all of the farms in their jurisdiction. At this point a lot of the farm had already been sold off in sections, so this meant that the whole property was no longer under the jurisdiction of the Hudson's Bay Company.