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In 1846 Edward Horsey acquired the important post as architect at Kingston Penitentiary - a position he held until his death in 1869. He then turned to designing and building Elizabeth Cottage as his architectural office and home for his wife Jane and their seven children. To the east side of his new house was 247-249 Brock Street a large double stone building, which he had built as a rental property in 1842-3, and on the west side facing Clergy Street, eighteen frame cottages (demolished c.1864) that he rented to workers.

Horsey selected a style - Gothic Revival - that was novel for Kingston houses at this time. Influenced by illustrations in contemporary American pattern books, his design features lacey vergre-boards, and strong finials accenting the parapeted front wall (on the right as you face the building). In the gable is a Romantic oriel window and below is a veranda with openwork buttresses as posts. The plan was originally L-shaped.

Two years before his death, Horsey sold the property to his son-in-law, Dr. Fife Fowler, who was living with his wife Elizabeth and their five children in half of the double stone house at 249 Brock Street. Horsey's widow lived in Elizabeth Cottage until 1883, and then Fowler hired Richard Newlands architect (1854-1926) to convert it into a double house for tenants. Newlands was careful to continue the medieval theme in his conversion (the left part as you face the buildings) with pointed arches, hood moldings, verge-boards, and bay windows, as portrayed in architecture pattern books of the 1850s. The extension necessitated the demolition of the stable Horsey had built c.1865.

In 1954 Louisa Fowler, Edward and Jane Horsey's granddaughter, left the property now named Elizabeth Cottage after her mother, Elizabeth Horsey Fowler, as a retirement home for women. The close connection of the cottage with the Horsey and Fowler families had endured over one hundred years.

Update December 2013. The property was listed for sale for I believe $999,999.00 dollars. Bids are to be opened imminently and the now empty property that requires serious renovation will change hands. I'll try to keep us posted.