Old Victoria Custom House

The Old Victoria Custom House or Malahat Building, in Victoria was completed in 1875 and designated as a historic building in 1987. It is a three-storey, mansard-roofed, custom house overlooking Victoria's harbour, symbolic of the time when Victoria was the pre-eminent commercial centre on Canada's West Coast. The building is described by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada as a "relatively plain example of the imposing Second Empire style adopted for these buildings under Thomas Seaton Scott, first Chief Architect of the Department of Public Works (1872-1881). Its modest design and materials are in keeping with the relative size of Victoria at that time."