Kentville’s Cornwallis Street officially renamed

Cornwallis Street in Kentville has officially been renamed Bridge Street.

The name change happened at a ceremony Monday evening but was in effect at the beginning of that day.

Town council voted last September to change the street, the name of which matched the surname of the founder of Halifax, who offered bounties for the deaths of members of Nova Scotia’s Mi’kmaq population.

The street runs north for 1.2 kilometres, starting at town hall on Main Street and running to Aldershot.

The town started looking at renaming the street under the previous council in June 2000 and last January started the process of choosing a new name.

Four years ago, the then-owners of the former Cornwallis Inn in Kentville changed the name of the building to Main Street Station.

Last October, Cornwallis Street in Halifax was renamed after Nova Scotia First Nations activist and leader Nora Bernard.

In 2020, Cornwallis Street in Sydney was renamed Legacy Street. Bridgewater changed its street to Crescent Street in 2022, and Lunenburg is in the process of renaming the street in that town.

There are half a dozen streets in Nova Scotia still bearing the Cornwallis name.

In recent years, his name has been removed from a Halifax park, school and a coast guard ship.