Wychwood Park Guide

History

Wychwood Park was founded by Marmaduke Matthews, a landscape painter who purchased land here in the 1870's with the hope of establishing an artist colony.  Matthews named Wychwood Park after Wychwood Forest, located near his childhood home in Oxfordshire, England.

In 1874, Matthews built the first house in the community, at 6 Wychwood Park. The second Wychwood Park house, at 22 Wychwood Park, was built in 1877, by Matthews' friend Alexander Jardine.

Matthews and Jardine jointly bought the land that abutted their estates and in 1891, registered a plan of subdivision for what is now the Wychwood Park neighbourhood.
Wychwood Park is historically significant for the architecture of its homes, and for being one of Toronto's earliest planned communities. The Wychwood Park neighbourhood was designated as an Ontario Heritage Conservation district in 1985.

Present

Wychwood Park is a neighbourhood enclave and former gated community located north of Davenport Road and just west of Bathurst Street. The verdant 22-acre hamlet atop the rolling wooded hills of the Davenport Ridge, with 300-year-old trees and a meandering private road is tucked away out of sight and earshot of these major arteries.

Homes

The homes are a mix of modest (artists' cottages near the entrance) and grand (a three-storey behemoth surrounded by a palatial lawn), occupied by artists, architects and intellectuals. As prices skyrocket into the millions of dollars, more and wealthier people move in. 

All of Wychwood Park's houses are listed on the Toronto Historical Board's Inventory of Heritage Properties. A handful of the first Wychwood Park houses were built in the late 1800's, however most of the houses in Wychwood Park were built in stages between 1906 and 1935. A few houses were also built in the early 1950's.

Many of the older Wychwood Park houses were designed by Eden Smith, an architect who specialized in the English Arts and Crafts house style. The influence of Smith's traditional English house forms is evident throughout Wychwood Park.

Shopping

Wychwood Park residents enjoy convenient access to a large number of shops and restaurants along St. Clair Avenue West. There is also a limited amount of convenience-type shopping on Vaughan and Davenport Roads, and on Bathurst Street.

Recreation and Leisure

Those fortunate enough to own one of the neighbourhood's sixty homes share a communal tennis court, park and pond fed by Taddle Creek.  While the area was amalgamated into the city of Toronto in 1908, it remains a private community. The roads, parklands and amenities are paid for by the local residents, and the community is managed by an executive council. The price for living in one of Toronto's more exclusive, private neighbourhoods is a special park tax paid by all homeowners, calculated based on the size of each property.

Transportation

Both the bus service on Davenport Road and the streetcar on St. Clair Avenue connect passengers to the Dupont station on the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line. The Bathurst bus connects passengers to the Bathurst station on the Bloor-Danforth subway line.  Motorists are approximately ten minutes from downtown and about the same distance north to the Allen Expressway off Eglinton Avenue.