Toronto: downtown

The Distillery District

This walk links together what we thought were the best bits of old Toronto, scattered among the sky-scrapers. We start at City Hall, a magnificent Romanesque revival building of 1899. The long attached columns on the bell tower are particularly notable.


I had seen, in a photographer’s shop, a wonderful picture of the tower reflected in the glass of a nearby sky-scraper and attempted to imitate the shot, with only partial success. I realised that he must have enjoyed a higher vantage point.



From here, walk down to King Street and turn left (east) to pass the King Edward hotel and soon set back on the right a terrace of red brick buildings. I don’t know anything about them, but the arcading and decoration are just lovely.



At the junction with Church St lies St James Anglican Cathedral, an ambitious neo-Gothic construction in yellow sandstone, with a massive spire. It dates from the 1870s.



A few steps further along King is a fabulous early modern shop front.



A small sculpture garden, typical of the way the Toronto authorities seem to be trying to enliven small spaces in the city, leads you to Front St. Looking to the right you see another red brick gem, the Flat Iron building. I don’t know whether it acquired its name before or after the famous, and much larger, one in New York.


Turning left along Front you come to the St Laurence Market, a classic market hall of 1844, which still houses food and drink stalls every day.



Several blocks further along Front you reach Parliament St and a quick right and left brings you to the Distillery District. This is the splendidly conserved and restored Gooderham and Worts distillery which was founded in 1832 and ceased production only in 1990. There was not even an interruption for Prohibition (which applied in Ontario between 1916 and 1923), since manufacturing remained legal and the company's product was exported.

The distillery consists of 44 separate buildings. These are now restaurants, bakeries, art shops, a theatre, boutiques and a micro-brewery. This is the stone distillery complex.




Distance: about 2 miles.

Rating: three and a half stars.