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34-649: The Ashbridge Estate is a historic estate in eastern Toronto, Ontario , Canada. The property was settled by the Ashbridge family, who were English Quakers who left Pennsylvania after the American Revolutionary War . In 1796, as United Empire Loyalists , the family were granted 600 acres (240 ha) of land on Lake Ontario east of the Don River , land which they had begun clearing two years earlier. The family constructed log cabins and frame homes on

68-504: A collection of family artifacts. Dorothy, Sarah Ashbridge's great-great-granddaughter, continued living in the house until 1997. The six generations of the Ashbridge family are the only family in the history of Toronto to have retained the same property for more than 200 years. A number of localities in the area are named after the Ashbridges. Just to the south of the house is Jonathan Ashbridge Park (named after Sarah's son), while slightly to

102-426: A gallery, portico , room or different element of architecture and thus evolved into garden architecture linked to landscaping. In the 20th century landscape architects such as Edouard François, Lewis Duncan, and Gilles Clément , uses trellis, as well as artists such as Nils Udo or Jean-Max Albert whose spatial creations belong to land art , site-specific art , or environmental sculpture . Jean-Max Albert notes

136-530: Is especially common in Europe and other rose-growing areas, and many climbing rose varieties require a trellis to reach their potential as garden plants. Some plants will climb and wrap themselves round a trellis without much artificial help being needed while others need training by passing the growing shoots through the trellis and/or tying them to the framework. Trellises can also be referred to as panels, usually made from interwoven wood pieces, attached to fences or

170-408: Is normally made to support and display climbing plants, especially shrubs . There are many types of trellis for different places and for different plants, from agricultural types, especially in viticulture , which are covered at vine training systems , to garden uses for climbers such as grapevines , clematis , ivy , and climbing roses or other support based growing plants. The rose trellis

204-517: The Royal Parks if owned by the royal family. The ownership of these estates for hunting was in practice strictly restricted until the 19th century when legal changes to game hunting meant the nobility, gentry and other wealthy families could purchase land for the purposes of hunting. At the administrative centre of these sporting estates is usually a sporting lodge . These are also often known as shooting or hunting estates. In modern British English ,

238-477: The United Kingdom , historically an estate comprises the houses, outbuildings, supporting farmland, tenanted buildings, and natural resources (such as woodland) that surround the gardens and grounds of a very large property, such as a country house , mansion , palace or castle . It is the modern term for a manor , but lacks a manor's now-abolished jurisdiction. The "estate" formed an economic system where

272-578: The 1880s. They sold all but this part of their original farm by the 1920s. Donated to the Ontario Heritage Foundation in 1972, it was the family estate until 1997. As they changed from pioneers to farmers to professionals over 200 years on this property, the Ashbridges personified Ontario's development from agricultural frontier to urban industrial society." 43°39′55″N 79°19′22″W  /  43.665303°N 79.322759°W  / 43.665303; -79.322759 Estate (land) In

306-483: The Ashbridges' orchard. Woodfield Road, on the east side of the current property, was originally the farm lane going to the fields farther north. By the 1920s, the property owned by the family had shrunk to the 2 acres (0.81 ha) that now make up the estate. Wellington's daughters, Dorothy Bullen and Elizabeth Burton, donated the house and remaining property to the Ontario Heritage Trust in 1972, along with

340-707: The City. Engineer E. H. Keating devised a plan to alter the course of the Don River which improved conditions in the river, but the bay remained severely polluted. Starting in 1912, the Toronto Harbour Commission began the Ashbridge's Bay Reclamation Scheme, the largest infrastructure project in North America up to that time. The bay was drained, and dredging from the Toronto Harbour was used to fill an area from

374-508: The Younger , in the first and second centuries, wrote about trellises in some of his letters about gardens. In the 19th century, Walt Whitman also mentioned a trellis in his poem Give me the Splendid, Silent Sun . Trellis was used to support shrubs in espalier , also to separate roads from thickets and diverse sections of vegetable gardens. These sorts of fences were made by the gardeners. When

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408-425: The art of gardening was perfected by André Le Nôtre and Jules Hardouin-Mansart , the treillis became an object of decoration and was entrusted to particular workers named treillageurs . They worked individually until 1769, when they joined the corporation of carpenters. The treillageur has to have at least some elementary notions and principles of architecture and l’art du trait . A trellis could be designed as

442-527: The east is Sarah Ashbridge Avenue. The bay that marked the southern edge of the property is now known as Ashbridge's Bay , named for John Ashbridge. On the east and north sides of the bay is the large Ashbridge's Bay Park. Ashbridge's Bay Park North, to the north of the bay, is the site of the Ashbridge's Bay Skate Park, opened in 2009. The west side of the bay is the location of the Ashbridge's Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant , Toronto's main sewage treatment plant and

476-556: The family began clearing land east of present-day Greenwood Avenue on three plots laid out by John Graves Simcoe , on a country trail which became the Kingston Road . As United Empire Loyalists fleeing political persecution in the United States, the family were officially granted 600 acres (240 ha) of the land in 1796, known as Part Lots 7, 8, and 9, stretching from Lake Ontario to present-day Danforth Avenue . A log cabin

510-558: The family donated the estate to the Ontario Heritage Trust , although members of the family continued living in the home until 1997. The site was listed on the Canadian Register of Historic Places in 2008. The Ashbridges are the only family in the history of Toronto to have continuously occupied land that they settled for more than 200 years. The Ashbridge family were English Quakers who lived in Chester County, Pennsylvania in

544-461: The family's property in the late-1800s, Jesse's wife, Elizabeth, began subdividing the lot in 1893. A second storey in Second Empire style was added to the home in 1900, with a mansard roof , while maintaining the original veranda. The house was built to the east of the old frame home, which was demolished in 1913. Elizabeth continued to live in the home until her death in 1918. A further addition

578-447: The former manor house of Woodstock. Before the 1870s, these estates often encompassed several thousand acres, generally consisting of several farms let to tenants ; the great house was supplied with food from its own home farm (for meat and dairy) and a kitchen garden (for fruit and vegetables). A dower house may have been present on the estate to allow the widow of the former owner her own accommodation and household when moved out

612-577: The harbour to the bay, creating the Toronto Port Lands . Only a small portion of the original bay remained, and the home which was once next to the shore was now located some distance away from the water. As the city of Toronto expanded eastward and encroached on the estate, Elizabeth and Wellington Ashbridge subdivided and sold off much of the family's land for residential subdivisions. The Duke of Connaught Public School (1912) and S.H. Armstrong Community Recreation Centre were built on land that had been

646-496: The late 1940s and early 1950s, many of these estates had been demolished and subdivided , in some cases resulting in suburban villages named for the former owners, as in Baxter Estates, New York . An important distinction between the United States and England is that "American country estates, unlike English ones, rarely, if ever, supported the house." American estates have always been about "the pleasures of land ownership and

680-633: The mid-18th century. Jonathan Ashbridge (1734-1781) had been disowned by the Chester Meeting some time after the American Revolutionary War and died in Pennsylvania in 1782. Jonathan's wife, Sarah James, arrived in Upper Canada in 1793 with her two sons, John and Jonathan, three of her daughters, and their families. Folklore suggests they spent their first winter in the ruins of the old French fort, Fort Rouillé , near present-day Fort York . In 1794,

714-466: The money for their improvement and maintenance usually comes from fortunes earned in other economic sectors besides agriculture. They are distinguished from ordinary middle-class American houses by sheer size, as well as their landscaping, gardens, outbuildings, and most importantly, recreational structures (e.g., tennis courts and swimming pools). This usage is the predominant connotation of "estate" in contemporary American English (when not preceded by

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748-457: The opportunity to enjoy active, outdoor pursuits ." Although some American estates included farms, they were always in support of the larger recreational purpose. Today, large houses on lots of at least several acres in size are often referred to as "estates", in a contemporary updating of the word's usage. Most contemporary American estates are not large enough to include significant amounts of self-supporting productive agricultural land, and

782-637: The primary house on the estate. The agricultural depression from the 1870s onwards and the decline of servants meant that the large rural estates declined in social and economic significance, and many of the country houses were destroyed , or land was parcelled off to be sold. An urban example of the use of the term estate is presented by the "great estates" in Central London such as the Grosvenor and Portman , which continue to generate significant income through rent. Sometimes London streets are named after

816-537: The profits from its produce and rents (of housing or agricultural land) sustained the main household, formerly known as the manor house . Thus, "the estate" may refer to all other cottages and villages in the same ownership as the mansion itself, covering more than one former manor. Examples of such great estates are Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire , England, and Blenheim Palace , in Oxfordshire , England, built to replace

850-433: The roof or exterior walls of a building. A pergola usually refers to trellis-work that is laid horizontally above head height to provide a partial "roof" in a garden (pergolas are also used in agricultural settings). The trellis was originally intended to support vine stock – which gives its name: lat Trichila (greenery bower ). The trellis has been mentioned in literature and botanical works throughout history. Pliny

884-510: The rural estates of aristocratic landowners, such as in the case of Wimpole Street . From the Norman era, hunting had always been a popular pastime with the British royalty and nobility, and dating from the medieval era, land was parcelled off and put aside for the leisurely pursuits of hunting. These originated as royal forests and chase land, eventually evolving into deer parks , or sometimes into

918-659: The same year. These houses were completed in 1811, and located west of the present estate. John and Jonathan served as pathmasters of the Kingston Road from 1797 to 1817. Both participated in the War of 1812 and the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. Jonathan's son, Jesse, inherited Part Lot 9 upon his father's death in 1845. The house known as the Jesse Ashbridge house was built on the family's land beginning in 1854. The house

952-707: The second largest such facility in Canada. A large willow tree on the estate, planted in 1919 and a well-known feature of the Leslieville neighbourhood, was felled by high winds in 2016. The Ontario Heritage Trust plaque on the estate reads: "This property was home to one family for two centuries. Sarah Ashbridge and her family moved here from Pennsylvania and began clearing land in 1794. Two years later they were granted 600 acres (243 hectares) between Ashbridge's Bay and present day Danforth Avenue. The Ashbridges prospered as farmers until Toronto suburbs began surrounding their land in

986-415: The shore of a bay , which was later named for them. The present home was built starting in 1854, with additions in 1900 and 1920. As the city of Toronto grew and encroached on the estate, the family gradually sold off their land, leaving only the current 2-acre (0.81 ha) property by the 1920s. The estate is located on Queen Street East near Greenwood Avenue in the Leslieville neighbourhood. In 1972,

1020-844: The term "estate" has been generalised to any large parcel of land under single ownership, such as a housing estate or industrial estate . Large country estates were traditionally found in New York's Long Island , and Westchester County , the Philadelphia Main Line , Maine's Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island , and other affluent East Coast enclaves; and the San Francisco Bay Area , early Beverly Hills, California , Montecito, California , Santa Barbara, California and other affluent West Coast enclaves. All these regions had strong traditions of large agricultural, grazing, and productive estates modeled on those in Europe. However, by

1054-412: The word "real" ), which is why "industrial estate" sounds like an oxymoron to Americans, as few wealthy persons would deliberately choose to live next to factories. Traditional American estates include: Trellis (architecture) A trellis (treillage) is an architectural structure, usually made from an open framework or lattice of interwoven or intersecting pieces of wood, bamboo or metal that

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1088-543: Was built on the trail about 60 m (200 ft) from the shoreline of Lake Ontario , on a bay formed by the mouth of the Don River . While clearing the land for farming, the family subsisted on fish and waterfowl from the bay and pigs that they raised. The family grew wheat as soon as they were able, which they transported to market. In the winter they sold ice cut from the bay. Sarah Ashbridge died in 1801. The brothers, John and Jonathan, each married in 1809, and began construction on two-storey frame homes for their families

1122-450: Was designed for Sarah's grandson and Jonathan's son, Jesse Ashbridge, by prominent local architect, Joseph Sheard , who many years later would serve as Mayor of Toronto . The cottage was designed in the Regency style , built with red brick laid in a Flemish bond , with a hipped roof and treillage veranda . Jesse married in 1864 and died in 1874. As Toronto's suburbs began to encroach on

1156-489: Was designed in 1920 by Elizabeth's son, Wellington, who trained as a civil engineer . This was in the form of a two-storey addition to the house's north wall. In the late nineteenth century, waste from livestock operations at the Gooderham and Worts distillery led to increasing pollution in the bay. A cholera outbreak in 1892 led the distillery to implement an improved waste filtration system, under threat of legal action from

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