Photo: New West's First Line of Defense

Outside New Westminster City Hall, you'll find an interesting reflection of the city's origins: a pair of twenty-four pounder field howitzers, dropped off on these shores by HMS Sparrowhawk in 1866 to defend the place against, presumably, the Americans. Even though they haven't been used for a hundred and thirty years and now have plugged muzzles, they're still pointed toward the south, just in case those folks down in Blaine or Point Roberts get it in their heads to go all 1812 on the Lower Mainland.

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