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Victorian Buildings In Canada – What Is Special About Them?

Many people think of Victorian as a style, but this is not correct To best define ‘Victorian’ Buildings, we would be looking at the time period of 1835 and 1900 and the multitude of designs in that time frame. Using many different elements it is hard to pinpoint a specific style, although each building will have a few details in common with each other. With diverse features from Classical and Gothic, these buildings can be erected using brick, stone and timber.

In Ontario, if you want to see lots of Victorian buildings then you need to look at the houses. With sturdy craftsmanship and lovely decorative touches, homes from large farms, a town house or a small cottage are excellent examples of the Victorian building. Making a property look fantastic with artistic swirls, patterns and an eye for detail is what the Victorian house builder did effectively. This led to criticism by a couple of European factions who considered the styles to be unnecessarily cluttered and complex. The final result melded together well, regardless of the fact that there were completely distinct architectural styles over the years.

The Cabbagetown Victorians are here

The first builders of Toronto had varied tastes with fantastic imaginations, unlike the builders today who tend to build the same type of property at every site, with little difference in style between two homes. To start with, property planners needed land and that was found north of Queen and west of Parliament, where areas had been cleared in the 1830′s for farming. Called park lots, these empty plots of land became the residences of notable York (now called Toronto) officials.

Farm houses and cottages, even though only a few, were the first pieces of Toronto Victorian architecture to be erected in Cabbagetown The original building lots were sold in 1845 along Sherbourne Street, with the land being separated into a grid arrangement of streets by city surveyor John Howard. Buyers in most cases purchased narrow building lots that were between 15 and 20 feet wide, which made attached or row houses the most practical housing type. At 241 Sherbourne street there is a good illustration of early Victorian design. Built in 1848 to be the home of brewer and philanthropist Enoch Turner, it is wide by comparison to other homes in the area, with a large rustic front porch, ornate trim and two-toned brick in decorative patterns. Another example of early Victorian design in the area is 424 Ontario Street, in which the ornate gingerbread trim on peaks and porches threatens to dominate the delicacy of the overall design.
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