We don’t often feel excited for the end of summer, but I had a lot of fun in August and September developing three Heritage Home and Tree Tour walks for the pilot Neighbourhood Shifting Gears Program, run by Peterborough Green-Up. The purpose of the walks was to connect neighbours, learn cultural heritage stories, and discover natural heritage features around the neighbourhood. The first walk is about the Avenues neighbourhood in Peterborough. We ran the walk twice and had over 50 people in total participate. It was a great hit and I’ve shared my notes with the walk participants via Green-Up’s Brianna Salmon. I create an accompanying map of the walking route and have posted the link to it below.
If you’re interested in the transcript or would like a guided tour of this neighbourhood, please drop us a line or email. Happy walking!
[toggle title_open=”Walking Notes Excerpt” title_closed=”Walking Notes Excerpt” hide=”yes” border=”no” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]Stop #1—Elias Ave & King St.
The Avenues has cultural significance in Peterborough because of its history as the largest subdivision of its time. Developed in the early 1900’s, the neighbourhood showcases a dense collection of Edwardian architecture, the brick gable front house with front porch. None of the homes in the Avenues have (or qualify for) heritage designation, as no one home is more unique than its neighbour, but the neighbourhood as a whole has a rich heritage. The land bounded by Charlotte St, King St, Park St, and Monaghan Rd was owned by a prominent lawyer Elias Burnham. After his death in 1890, Elias’ estate land was divided and laid out into streets “Avenues” in ~1905 by his daughter Elizabeth and her husband John Boswell. All the streets were given family names; Boswell, Pearl (Elias’ granddaughter), Maitland (his grandson), Elias, Margaret (his sister), and Frederick (his son). By 1911, most of the homes on the more eastern streets (Boswell, Pearl, Maitland) were completed, as shown in the Roy Studios photo taken of Maitland Ave in ~1911. Most homes were completed on Elias Ave. by 1915, but development continued throughout the subdivision into the 1920’s and early 30’s.[/toggle]
View Shifting Gears: Avenues Walk in a larger map
