UK Tour Photos: Northamptonshire, Birthplace of the Simcoes

A year later, I'm still posting photos from the Toronto Dreams Project's UK Tour. I hadn't originally planned on visiting Northamptonshire, but upon my arrival in England, I was invited to spend a day in the lovely county of spires and squires. It's the part of the country where both John Graves Simcoe, the founder of Toronto, and his future wife, Elizabeth, were born. It's a strange coincidence — despite being born within a few kilometers of each other, it seems they didn't meet and fall in love until many years later far away in the rolling hills of Devon.

My hosts for the day were Ioan and Alice Thomas. Ioan a retired biology teacher who used to work at the local Oundle School — he inspired one of his students to pursue a career in science: a boy by the name of Richard Dawkins. Ioan and Alice are both very interested in their local history, which means that they are both very interested in the history of the Simcoes. They were nice enough to show me around the countryside, stopping to visit some of the Simcoes' childhood haunts, including the churches they attended as children and the mansion where the founder of Toronto was born.

You can check out all of my photos from my day in Northamptonshire on Facebook right here:

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And, as always, you can follow me on Instagram at @todreamsproject.

UK Tour Photos: The Blackdown Hills of Devon

There's a little piece of Canada in the middle of the English countryside. It's in the West Country, in Devonshire, in the Blackdown Hills. It's a land of magic and myth. Of fairies and pixies. Of warrior ghosts and witchcraft. Of Druids and Romans. Of poachers and smugglers. Of Iron Age hill forts, Bronze Age burial mounds and Stone Age earthworks. And this is where — more than 200 years ago — the founders of Toronto met and fell in love. The Simcoes grew old together here. This is where they're buried. They lie at rest with their children at Wolford Chapel, a small church they built on their estate looking out across these green hills. More than a century later, the land the chapel sits on was given to Ontario. It's officially part of Canadian territory. A Canadian flags flies outside.

I came to Devon to explore the Blackdown Hills as part of the Dreams Project's UK Tour last summer. I left dreams here for the Simcoes — and for Henry Scadding, who also grew up in these parts. I've already written a bit about it: a post about the ancient church where the Simcoes got married is here; there's a post about how they fell in love here.

But now I've finally posted a full gallery of my photos from my day wandering through the hills. You can check it out on Facebook right here:

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And, as always, you can follow me on Instagram at @todreamsproject.

UK Tour Photos: Budleigh Salterton

1797. The city of Toronto was just four years old. We were still called York back then, still just a tiny little wooden town cut out of the forest on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. But the guy who had founded our town was already thousands of kilometers away. John Graves Simcoe — the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada — headed home to England with his family just a few years after they first pitched their fancy tent at the mouth of Garrison Creek.

They came home to their beautiful country estate in the rolling hills of Devon. But they also bought themselves a new place, somewhere to hang out during the summer months. It was just down the River Otter from their estate, in the seaside town that sits at the mouth of the river, surrounded by towering red cliffs. It's called Budleigh Salterton. Today, it's in the middle of a World Heritage Site. Those cliffs stretch west for more than 150 kilometers, the only place in the world where you'll find the entire history of the dinosaurs. They call it the Jurassic Coast.

The house in Budleigh Salterton where the Simcoes lived is still there today. It's undergone lots of renovations and additions over the years, but it's still called Simcoe House. There's even a plaque outside. So, on Day Ten of the Toronto Dreams Project's UK Tour, I headed to Budleigh Salterton, to leave dreams for the Simcoes there. I got to spend a night at the pub with all the friendly people who run the local Fairlynch Museum. And I took a big walk up into the heathland north of the town, up to the Iron Age hill fort where Simcoe trained men to fight Napoleon. And I followed the path along the top of those towering red cliffs, still eroding away just like they were in the days when the Simcoes called this place home.

I've already written a big post about the history of Budleigh Salterton here. And now you can check out my photos from the day I spent roaming the area on Facebook — whether or not you have an account — right here:

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And, as always, you can follow me on Instagram at @todreamsproject.

UK Tour Photos: Exeter

John Graves Simcoe, the founder of Toronto, was born in Northamptonshire — in the middle of England. But Exeter is where he grew up. The historic city in the West Country was his hometown: it's where he went to school as a boy, where he (might have) watched his brother drown in the river, where his mother would die while Simcoe was off fighting on the British side of the American Revolution, and where he would eventually die, too, having fallen ill on his way to fight Napoleon. So, on Day Nine of the Toronto Dreams Project's UK Tour, I headed to Exeter with a bunch of dreams for Simcoe, and left them in places related to the history of the man who founded Toronto. I've already written a big post about that history here. And now you can check out my photos from the day I spent in Exeter on Facebook — whether or not you have an account — right here:

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And, as always, you can follow me on Instagram at @todreamsproject.

UK Tour Photos: Bristol, Bath & Thornbury

On the Toronto Dreams Project's UK Tour, I headed from London to Wales and from Wales back across the border into England's West Country. My first stop on that leg of the tour brought to me to spend one night in Bristol. There weren't any particular connections to Toronto history's there — but I used it as a base to explore two nearby towns where there were plenty.

Bath is just a ten minute train ride from Bristol. I headed there as soon as I'd checked into my hotel on the night I arrived. It's a World Heritage Site — one of five I would visit on my trip — home to the famous Roman baths. And it was easily one of the most beautiful places I saw on the entire trip. The gorgeous surroundings and supposedly healthy spring water attracted many visitors in the 1700s and the 1800s. And the Simcoes were among them. The parents of John Graves Simcoe — the governor who founded Toronto — got married at Bath Abbey, which looms over the complex of Roman baths. (It's the cathedral in the big photo above.) His wife, Elizabeth Simcoe, was a frequent visitor too. I left a dream for her outside the church.

Meanwhile, the town of Thornbury is a short-ish bus ride north of Bristol. So I headed there when I woke up the next morning. It's the town where John Rolph was born. He was a doctor and a lawyer and one of the most important political figures in the early history of Toronto. He was a leading advocate for democratic reform — eventually becoming a key ally to William Lyon Mackenzie. If the rebel mayor's revolution had been successful, Rolph would have become the first Canadian President. I left a bunch of dreams for him in Thornbury. And wrote a whole post about it here.

Bristol itself was pretty amazing, too. I was only able to wander around the city for a few hours — I had hurry south to Exeter for the next leg of my tour — but it was another highlight of the trip. It was bustling with life on a Friday evening, a mix of university students and artists, of historical buildings and graffiti (it's Bansky's hometown), that reminded me of Toronto more than any other place I visited on the entire trip. I hope to get to back someday.

 

You can find all of my best photos from all three of those spots on Facebook — viewable whether or not you have an account — right here:

 

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And, as always, you can follow me on Instagram at @todreamsproject.

UK Tour Photos: The Rhondda Valley

On my third day in Wales, I took the train from Cardiff up into the South Wales Valleys. This spot in the Rhondda was ground zero for the world's coal mining industry in the 1800s and early 1900s. This lush green Eden was turned into a Mordor of slag heaps and smoke. Hundreds of men and boys lost their lives in the darkness under the ground here. There were strikes and riots. And eventually, the industry collapsed. Today, there are no deep coal mines left anywhere in the South Wales Valleys. And while the slopes turn back into spectacular green, the region is left struggling economically. A couple of years ago, it was declared — along with west Wales — to be the poorest place anywhere in the United Kingdom.

While I was in the Rhondda, I took the chance to track down an ancient holy site: St. Mary's Well. It's marked by a big stone statue of the Virgin Mary and a natural spring which is said to have miraculous healing powers. Pilgrims have come here for centuries — maybe even stretching back all the way into pagan prehistory. But the site was shut down by King Henry VIII during his attacks on Catholicism. I wrote a whole post about it as an excuse to talk about the impact the Reformation had on Toronto hundreds of years later. You can read that post here, a post about Cardiff's economic recovery — and the role played by a TV show created by a Torontonian — here, and check out all my photos of the Rhondda here:

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And, as always, you can follow me on Instagram at @todreamsproject.

UK Tour Photos: Cardiff

The second leg of The Toronto Dreams Project's UK Tour took me to Cardiff, the capital of Wales. I was there to leave dreams for two Torontonians in particular: Sydney Newman and Sir Charles Seymour Wright. Newman was the creator of Doctor Who; the science-fiction show is now filmed in Cardiff. And Wright was an explorer on the infamous Scott Expedition, which sailed from Cardiff to Antarctica in 1910. I've already written a couple of posts about my time in the city — about the legacy of Doctor Who here and about the many ways Cardiff remembers the Scott Expedition here. Now, I've uploaded my photos as well. You can find them all on Facebook — whether you have an account or not — right on over here:

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And, as always, you can follow me on Instagram at @todreamsproject.

High Park In Winter

It's hard to believe, but we're only a few weeks away from the days when the Sakura cherry blossoms will be blooming again in High Park. So, I recently took the chance to take a walk through the park while it's all still full of winter. I had my eye out for Snowy Owls and Bald Eagles — both of which have been spotted there this year — and while I wasn't lucky enough to see any, I did get to see plenty of pretty. (Even if it was so cold on the banks of Grenadier Pond that my iPhone kept shutting down.) I've uploaded a bunch of my photos, along with a few archival pics, to a gallery on Facebook, which you can check out here (whether you have a Facebook account or not):

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And, as always, you can follow me on Instagram at @todreamsproject.

The Islands In Winter

The Toronto Islands are, of course, one of our city's most popular attractions. But not so much during the winter, when the cold and snow and ice and lack of ferry service tend to keep most people away. So, as the polar vortex loosened its grip last week, a friend and I decided to head out across the harbour for the first time in the winter. It was a pretty remarkable experience. In the fresh snow and ice, the Islands were absolutely gorgeous. And while the ferry folk did warn us that the boat might get stuck in the ice — the Ward's Island ferry is the only one in service during the off-season — we didn't run into any trouble. We even got a private tour of the barn at Far Enough Farm (next to the deserted Centreville) and had a close encounter with some remarkably friendly mallards. I've uploaded a gallery of my photos from our excursion, along with a few archival pics, to Facebook, which you can check out here (whether you have a Facebook account or not):

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I've also got a little video of those ducks, which you can watch here. And, as always, you can follow me on Instagram at @todreamsproject.

Rouge Park in September

One of my favourite things to do in Toronto is to take the GO Train out to the very eastern edge of the city, where I Instagram my way through Rouge Park. My most recent trip was a couple of weeks ago, at the end of September, just as the first leaves were beginning to change. I started out at Rouge Beach, which is at the mouth of the Rouge River, and worked my way north up to the Mast Trail before exploring the Orchard and Cedar Trails for the first time. I've just uploaded all the photos to Facebook, which you can check out here (whether you have a Facebook account or not) along with all the pics from my previous trips.

You can also check out maps of trails 'n' stuff on the Rouge Park website here. Or read my post about how Napoleon Bonaparte is indirectly responsible for the Mast Trail here. And, as always, you can follow me on Instagram at @todreamsproject.