Though the origins of its name remain a mystery, Nanny Goat Hill has been an important component of Ottawa’s landscape for more than a century.
Defined largely by an escarpment north of Somerset Street West, Nanny Goat Hill acts as the border between LeBreton Flats and the residential area to the south.
Some institutions in the area that share its unusual name include a community garden, located on the northeast corner of Bronson and Laurier avenues, and a nursery school, located on Somerset Street West between Upper Lorne and Empress avenues.
The Nanny Goat Hill area on the escarpment between Booth and Cambridge streets also is home to many churches.
But one of the hill’s most unique elements is the pedestrian staircases that ascend it: the Primrose staircase that runs east-west and the Empress staircase that runs north-south. The bottom of the Empress staircase comes out near the Good Companions Seniors’ Centre on Albert Street.
An exact origin of the name is unclear, but accounts of the hill date back to the early 1900s.
When the Great Fire of 1900 destroyed much of Hull and portions of Ottawa, the limestone bluff at Nanny Goat Hill helped limit the fire’s progression. A newspaper story from that day suggested that the cliff was “the only thing which stopped the whole city of Ottawa from becoming a prey to the fire.”
Also, popular artist Henri Masson painted two of his famous oil sketches from atop hill in the 1930s. Many of his other works also depicted views of the area, which remain recognizable today. One example of this is his sketch of the corner of Primrose and Lorne avenues, with the Ottawa River and the Gatineau Hills in the background.