Quick Facts
When the Town of York was established in 1793, the land was divided up into long, narrow plots of land and gifted to elite British settlers. During the Victorian Era, many of these original properties were subdivided into sections that are still recognizable today. One lot, originally owned by the Macaulay family, was subdivided with a portion acquired by the Law Society of Upper Canada to establish Osgoode Hall while the rest evolved into St. John’s Ward, commonly referred to as The Ward.
Toronto’s former nickname, the Queen City, is an homage to its 19th-century residents’ veneration for all things British.
A giant statue of Queen Victoria was once proposed as the focal point of a public square next to Old City Hall.
Part of Toronto’s urban layer of Victorian buildings and landscapes, Allan Gardens is one of the city’s oldest public parks. It has been the setting for a wide range of activities over the past 160 years, and today is the centre of a diverse downtown neighbourhood. From the orderly lot structure imposed by earlier settlers, Victorian Toronto evolved into the dense and lively chaos of the modern downtown.
When John Graves Simcoe established the Town of York in 1793, he divided Toronto into a series of long, narrow ‘Park Lots’ between Queen Street and Bloor Street and granted them to elite settlers. By the mid-19th century, they were subdividing the lots as the city expanded. Many of Toronto’s oldest buildings and landscapes date to the Victorian period between 1837–1901.
Merchant William Allan built a grand home called Moss Park on his Park Lot in 1827. After his death in the 1850s, his son George donated five acres to the Toronto Horticultural Society. This area bordered by Carlton, Sherbourne, Gerrard, and Jarvis became Allan Gardens, one of Toronto’s earliest public parks.
The Society opened a pavilion there in 1860 that has since been replaced. Allan Gardens served as a venue for floral displays, performances, and even a lecture by Oscar Wilde in 1882.
Over time, Allan Gardens evolved. The park was a gay cruising spot as early as the 1910s, a setting for free speech debates in the 1960s, and the site of G20 protests in 2010. Today, Allan Gardens is a botanical garden, a gathering place for 2SLGBTQ+ and Indigenous events, as well as an outdoor space for apartment dwellers and unhoused community members.