{"id":8654,"date":"2010-01-07T11:00:26","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T16:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=8654"},"modified":"2013-01-21T15:16:26","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T20:16:26","slug":"gtas-lost-villages-thistletown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/07\/gtas-lost-villages-thistletown\/","title":{"rendered":"GTA’s lost villages: Thistletown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

23 Jason Road, Thistletown’s first house, built around 1802<\/em><\/p>\n

Thistletown<\/a>, perhaps Toronto’s best-hidden historic neighbourhood, is located at the intersection of Albion Road and Islington Avenue<\/a>. The village, which was never incorporated, was established in the 1840s, servicing the important Albion Road. The settlement got its name from a prominent local family.<\/p>\n

Albion Road was surveyed as early as 1799, predating the grid-based concession farm plot and road system, as an extension of Weston Road. Albion passed through other lost villages such as Clairville (at Steeles) to Albion Township (later amalgamated into the Town of Caledon). The road’s diagonal path made the route ideal for farmers to bring their produce and livestock to market in the larger town of Weston, or all the way into Toronto, particularly before the railways were built. At its height, Thistletown had a population of several hundred, a community hall, an inn and tavern, and several shops at the corner of Albion and Islington.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Islington and Albion today<\/em><\/p>\n

The village and its name live on today, though its historic legacy is more hidden than that of Agincourt<\/a>. For example, not a single historic building remains on either of the two main roads. And unlike Agincourt, which has expanded in Torontonian’s minds well beyond the small village, “Thistletown” has been crowded out of many mental maps by the modern suburb of Rexdale, which is now often used to describe the whole swath of northern Etobicoke.<\/p>\n

Despite being missed by the major steam railways such as the Grand Trunk and the Toronto, Grey and Bruce, traffic on Albion Road towards Weston and Toronto kept the village from declining as much as other nearby settlements that were also bypassed. However, the Toronto Suburban Railway built an extension of its successful Weston suburban radial as far as Woodbridge and directly served the community until 1926, when the line was abandoned.<\/p>\n

By the 1950s, Toronto’s suburban sprawl began to creep into north Etobicoke Township. Developer Rex Heslop<\/a> began development of a massive industrial and residential tract nearby that he would call Rexdale (Heslop went on to build the large Delrex neighbourhood in Georgetown, doubling that town’s size almost overnight). Both Albion Road and Islington Avenue were widened, Albion straightened (Bankfield and Edgebrook drives<\/a> follow an older alignment), and all village commercial and institutional buildings destroyed. Today, 1960s-style retail strips, with businesses largely catering to the neighbourhood’s large South Asian population, are predominant built-form.<\/p>\n

Off the main arterials, much evidence of the village’s history is present. One of Toronto’s oldest residences is located on Jason Drive (shown at top of post), built as early as 1802. The Franklin Carmichael Art Centre<\/a>, located on Riverdale Drive, was the home of the namesake Group of Seven painter<\/a>, and continues on as a City of Toronto cultural centre.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Franklin Carmichael Art Centre on Riverdale Drive
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A garden centre on Bankfield Drive provides a vestige of Thistletown’s rural past.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

23 Jason Road, Thistletown’s first house, built around 1802 Thistletown, perhaps Toronto’s best-hidden historic neighbourhood, is located at the intersection of Albion Road and Islington Avenue. The village, which was never incorporated, was established in the 1840s, servicing the important Albion Road. The settlement got its name from a prominent local family. Albion Road wasContinue reading “GTA’s lost villages: Thistletown”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21759,18,20],"tags":[14011,14005,1939,14007,91,14006,14009,14010,2896,1022,37,145,1798,14008,75,12510,19,2665],"class_list":["post-8654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-neighbourhoods","category-urban-design","tag-1960s-style-retail-strips","tag-albion-township","tag-caledon","tag-clairville","tag-etobicoke","tag-etobicoke-township","tag-franklin-carmichael","tag-franklin-carmichael-art-centre","tag-georgetown","tag-group-of-seven","tag-intersections","tag-lost-villages","tag-painter","tag-rex-heslop","tag-suburbs","tag-thistletown","tag-toronto","tag-weston"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGTA's lost villages: Thistletown - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/01\/07\/gtas-lost-villages-thistletown\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GTA's lost villages: Thistletown - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"23 Jason Road, Thistletown’s first house, built around 1802 Thistletown, perhaps Toronto’s best-hidden historic neighbourhood, is located at the intersection of Albion Road and Islington Avenue. 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