Bonsecours Market
Neoclassical hall with a silver dome that briefly sheltered a burned-out parliament under armed guard.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Bonsecours Market in Montreal turns on the night of April 25, 1849, when a mob of Tory rioters burned the colony's parliament building a few streets from here after lawmakers voted to compensate French Canadians for property lost in earlier rebellions. You'll hear how the government, with nowhere else to sit, moved straight into this two-year-old market under its new silver dome, ringed by soldiers and facing two cannons in the street outside. Stand under that same dome, now filled with shops and diners, and picture the room mid-session.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Place d'Youville
Patchwork lawn tracing a buried river through five centuries of layered history.
La Fontaine Park
Landscaped city park with twin ponds, a romantic footbridge and a lit fountain around a nineteenth-century military drill ground.
Montreal City Hall
Second Empire limestone landmark whose balcony once triggered an international diplomatic incident.
Château Ramezay - Musée et site historique de Montréal
Stone colonial mansion once used as Continental Army headquarters during the American invasion.
Saint-Henri
Riverside industrial quarter with an Art Deco public market and its landmark clock tower.
The Biosphere, Environment Museum
Geodesic steel dome from a world's fair, its acrylic skin burned away in a welding fire, now an environment museum.