The centerpiece of each historic site is a 19th-century building — a manor and schoolhouse commissioned by the Hudson's Bay Company to provide education and lodging for their employees.

[5][6] The land in the area was formed during the last ice age in North America, approximately 13,000 years ago, when receding glaciers carved a deep gouge into the earth, which became a number of small lakes and streams.

[4] The Lekwungen, a Coast Salish tribe and ancestors of the modern Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations, settled in the area, calling the whole region "Camossung", after the legend of a girl they believed was turned to stone there.

[4] The "Historic" culture type refers to the colonial settlement of the area, and is contiguous with the European colonization; a majority of the artifacts recovered from the site have been dated to this period.

[8] The other two periods of human habitation are discernible mainly by the presence of a large shell midden on the site; testifying to the abundant shellfish and game in the area.

This was to be the third school constructed in the colony of Vancouver Island, following Governor James Douglas' call "to give a proper moral and religious training to the children of the settlers who are growing up in ignorance and the utter neglect of all their duties to God and society.

[2][12] The two-story building was built in Georgian Revival style, and boasted a single schoolroom on the first floor, as well as six rooms for the teacher, their family, and student boarders from other parts of Vancouver Island.

A large brick fireplace, as well as a stove, provided heating for the building, and a bell salvaged from the wrecked steamship Major Tompkins was hung in the yard to call students to class.

[12] The schoolhouse became the focal point of social and religious events on the farm, and saw continuous use until 1872 when town council neglected to provide funding for Victoria's schools.