Little Britain is a compact rural community in the City of

Kawartha Lakes The City of Kawartha Lakes (2021 population 79,247) is a unitary municipality in Central Ontario, Canada. It is a municipality legally structured as a single-tier city; however, Kawartha Lakes is the size of a typical Ontario county and is most ...

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 C ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. It is located southwest of Lindsay. Formerly a part of Mariposa Township and Victoria County, Little Britain is now part of Ward 4, City of Kawartha Lakes.

History

Little Britain was established in 1834 by Harrison Haight who built the first mill in 1837. This mill, which stood until 1910, took nearly the whole countryside to build. At the time, there was no road that led from Little Britain to Oakwood, located to the north. The first church was built in 1850, followed by the Bible Church in 1852. The Post Office came in 1853. Names suggested for the town were ''Margaretville'', after Margaret Metherell, and ''Elm Grove'', proposed by the first postmaster, Robert Fergusson Whiteside. The latter was rejected by the post office because of duplication, so Whiteside named it after his place of origin, Little Britain, Pennsylvania. Prominent members of the time included Joseph Maunder's carriage and blacksmithing works, W.M Burden's carriage shop, Edwin Mark's foundry, Isaac Finley's steam roller flour mill, Dr George Wesley Hall MD and the Davidson's flour mill. The railway was brought into Lindsay around the turn of the century. This however, did little to advance Little Britain's economic output. In fact the population of Mariposa Township declined sharply between 1871–1920 from 3,132 to 2,231.

Today

Little Britain today is still a primarily agricultural town. It also has a fairly significant tourist presence from the influx of cottagers on nearby Lake Scugog and from those who use Little Britain Road as a means to bypass heavy cottager summer traffic on

Ontario Highway 7 King's Highway 7, commonly referred to as Highway 7 and historically as the Northern Highway, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. At its peak, Highway 7 measured in length, stretching from Highway&nbs ...

. For such a small town, Little Britain boasts a number of comfortable amenities including a restaurant, bakery, bank, library, grocery store, post office, park, arena and a country gift store as well as many other services. There is a gas bar, two auto repair shops, a drugstore and a medical office.

References

{{authority control Communities in Kawartha Lakes Populated places established in 1834 1834 establishments in Canada