Gore Park is a

town square A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true square, geometric square, used for community gathe ...

or urban park located in downtown

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...

Name

The park is located in the angle formed by James Street to the west, two separate sections of King Street to the north and south, and John Street to the east. Thin wedges of land that did not fit into square survey grids, like the land which Gore Park occupies, used to be called gores. The name of the park is thus a reference to its triangular shape that stands out among the predominantly square grid of the city.

History

The ground where the park is now located was once part of a Crown land grant to the prominent merchant John Askin Sr. It was later sold to Nathaniel Hughson Sr., then to

James Durand James Durand (1775 – 22 March 1833) was a businessman and political figure in Upper Canada. He was born in Abergavenny, Wales in 1775 and came to Upper Canada in 1802 to deal with delinquent accounts on behalf of a group of London merchants ...

, before coming into the possession of George Hamilton in 1816. Before becoming a public space, the gore of land between King, James and John streets had served as a dump, lumber yard, and planned city market square in 1830s. In the 1840s there were numerous plans to develop the land, but these proved contentious. In 1853 it was proposed to locate a new post office on the underused land, but this was also rejected. Instead, an ornamental fountain was erected in 1860, and in 1873 the land was laid out as a park and planted with flowers and shrubs.

Features

The most prominent feature in the park is the large central fountain. This fountain was installed in 1970, and is a replica of an earlier fountain that was erected on the site in 1860 in order to commemorate the

Royal tour A state visit is a formal visit by a head of state to a foreign country, at the invitation of the head of state of that foreign country, with the latter also acting as the official host for the duration of the state visit. Speaking for the host ...

of Queen Victoria's son and heir,

Edward Albert Edward Laurence Albert (February 20, 1951 – September 22, 2006) was an American actor. The son of actor Eddie Albert and Mexican actress Margo, he starred opposite Goldie Hawn in ''Butterflies Are Free'' (1972), a role for which he won a ...

. The park also contains a memorial to Queen Victoria by Philipe Hebert, c. 1908. Gore Park is home to the Hamilton Cenotaph / Gore Park Veterans Memorial by William Russell Souter, c. 1923. This monument commemorates the residents of Hamilton who served in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Until the summer of 2021, the park contained a memorial to

Sir John A. Macdonald Sir John Alexander Macdonald (January 10 or 11, 1815 – June 6, 1891) was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career that sp ...

George Edward Wade George Edward Wade (1853, London – 5 February 1933) was a British sculptor. He was largely self-taught as an artist and is best remembered for his statues of royalty and politicians. He was baptised on 17 April 1853 at Westminster, London, E ...

, c. 1893. The statue of MacDonald was toppled by protesters following multiple discoveries of unmarked graves at former Canadian residential school sites.

Gallery

References

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