Apartment for rent in Saint-Sacrement: neighbourhood guide

In the mid-19th century, the Saint-Sacrement area was made up of farms and country estates, mostly owned by the British-born bourgeoisie. Québec City mayor George O’Kill Stuart then lived at Holland House, a large property bordered by the future avenue Holland. Nearby, the Congregation of Notre-Dame opened a convent on the Bellevue estate in 1874. Chemin Sainte-Foy, laid out in the 17th century, already crossed the area.

In 1909, the Montcalm Land company bought land on the edge of Ville-Montcalm to create Parc Montcalm, a grid subdivision between today’s rue Eymard and avenue Holland. A streetcar line to Sillery ran through it from 1910, and the company built a series of row houses there, the “bloc Forget.” Growth remained slow: in 1913, the year Ville-Montcalm was annexed to Québec City, there were only about twenty houses.

In 1915, the Fathers of the Blessed Sacrament settled at the top of the côte des Bell, now avenue Saint-Sacrement, and opened a wooden chapel. The Très-Saint-Sacrement parish was founded in 1921, and its priest, Father Auguste Pelletier, opened a girls’ school in 1922 and a boys’ school in 1923. In 1924, the population reached 1,050 residents and the new church was blessed. The Hôpital du Saint-Sacrement opened in 1927.

Development picked up again in 1940 as new streets opened. Founded in 1943, the L’Habitation familiale co-operative opened rue Eymard and several other streets to make home ownership accessible to families. The new Jeffery Hale hospital opened in 1956, when the population was close to 8,000. In 1988, the area, until then part of the Montcalm neighbourhood, became the Saint-Sacrement neighbourhood.