James Gardens is a public

botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

in the

Etobicoke Etobicoke (, ) is an administrative district of, and one of six municipalities amalgamated into, the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comprising the city's west-end, Etobicoke was first settled by Europeans in the 1790s, and the municipalit ...

district of

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, Canada along the Humber River. It was a former private estate sold to the City of Toronto and now managed by the Toronto Parks Department.

Overview

James Gardens consists of broad lawns, numerous flower beds, specimen plantings, rock gardens, nature trails, three large and four small ponds fed by a spring and connected by a stream, a

carp Carp are various species of oily freshwater fish from the family Cyprinidae, a very large group of fish native to Europe and Asia. While carp is consumed in many parts of the world, they are generally considered an invasive species in parts of ...

pool, and a

lawn bowling Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

court. It is connected to the Humber River pedestrian and cycling trail. Each year thousands of flowers and over 75,000 tulips are planted in the beds, whose designs and materials are changed annually in the rock gardens and under the well-pruned trees and shrubs. Each year, there are tens of thousands of visitors, and many weddings and receptions are held on the grounds of James Gardens.

History

It was the estate of Mr. and Mrs. Fred T. James. In 1908, Fred James purchased the property from his wife's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Rumney, as well as the adjoining land from the Home Smith Company. This purchase totalled of hills, valleys, virgin forest, and bush meadow land on the west side of the Humber River in the area then part of

. The James family lived in a house situated on the top west corner of the estate at Edgehill Road. Preserved to this day, it is a two-story, red-gabled house built of Humber River stone. The building is now a community recreation centre operated by the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation department. The horse stables were located below the house where the northwest stairs are now. Part of the original wall can still be seen. Various horseshoes, nails and coins have been found in the flower beds. In the 1920s, the James family installed weeping tiles and water features. Various First Nations artifacts including spear points were found. These were examined in the early 2000s and dated to be 4,000 years old. The park was purchased by

Metro Toronto The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was an upper-tier level of municipal government in Ontario, Canada, from 1953 to 1998. It was made up of the old city of Toronto and numerous townships, towns and villages that surrounded Toronto, which ...

for in 1955 and subsequently operated by its Parks Department.

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV) is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 1952. Its French-l ...

shot scenes at James Gardens for the program "

This is the Law ''This Is the Law'' was a Canadian panel game show which aired on CBC Television from 1971 to 1976. It presented short, humorous vignettes supposedly set in various towns and cities across Canada which ran with musical accompaniment rather than ...

", with

Paul Soles Paul Robert Soles (August 11, 1930 – May 26, 2021) was a Canadian actor and television personality. He led the voice cast in such series as ''The Marvel Super Heroes'' (1966), voiced the title character in ''Spider-Man'' (1967), and portraye ...

. In 2013,

Rob Ford Robert Bruce Ford (May 28, 1969 – March 22, 2016) was a Canadian politician and businessman who served as the 64th mayor of Toronto from 2010 to 2014. Before and after his term as mayor, Ford was a city councillor representing Ward 2 Etobi ...

, the former mayor of Toronto, lived near the entrance of the park. He was unsuccessful in buying a segment from the

Toronto and Region Conservation Authority The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) is a conservation authority in southern Ontario, Canada. It owns about of land in the Toronto region, and it employs more than 400 full-time employees and coordinates more than 3,000 voluntee ...

. An investigation by a ''Toronto Star'' reporter led to a night-time confrontation by Ford with the reporter. It is said to have a gruesome story from the 1900s and haunted by the mother of Fred James. Many have different variations of the story but nothing definite. There is a safe in the basement of the house that the city has not been able to open, and it is said that blood has been detected with technology around the safe.

References

External links

* {{Parks and squares in Toronto Estate gardens in Canada Parks in Toronto Etobicoke First Nations sites in Toronto