Description of Landfall
The little house stood on a narrow shelf or terrace that had been dug from the steep hillside bordering the bay. Being but a low, one-storey and a half affair, its rear seemed buried in the hill and so integrated with it that the weather-beaten clapboard facade appeared as an outcropping of the underlying ledges. From the retaining wall that supported a narrow picket-fenced front yard, the land pitched steeply toward the sea to terminate abruptly in a cliff. The house, approached by the merest cart’s width track dug from the hillside, stood at road’s end; almost, it seemed, so isolated was the spot, at land’s end.
from Rockwell Kent’s autobiography It’s Me O Lord (New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1955) p.280
Landfall is representative of the typical plantation houses which once were scattered along the coastline of Conception Bay. Records of the cottage’s construction and earliest days are scanty. However, we do know the Pomeroy family owned and likely lived there from the early 1800s to the late 1800s. Then by chance, it was rescued by three, 20th century residents who, captivated by the solitude and inspiration of Landfall, added to the expansion and continuance of this historic property.
Michael Philpott, “The Probable History of Landfall (Kent Cottage), Brigus, NL“
Heritage NL Fieldnote Series, 012, January 2021
Landfall Trust 