Rosedale Walks

Two Rosedale Exploration Walks

Here's some information about two walks you can take around our neighbourhood - enjoy! Descriptions of both walks first appeared in KAL Green Newsletters, and a question was included in each. Each question received an answer; you'll find the details below.

Walk #1: Rosedale Valley Road Take Crescent Road over Mount Pleasant to South Drive, then down South Drive to Park Road, then down Park Road to Rosedale Valley Road. You can view the signs explaining the historic significance of the spot. Next, walk west on the north side of Rosedale Valley Road. The cars take the left fork to go up Aylmer; stay on Rosedale Valley Road. It narrows and veers east around past two apartment buildings, Fontainebleau Apartments and Arbour Glen Apartments. Then you'll come to a small city building. It looks like a house but has a huge garage and parking area, no sign to show what exactly it is. Just past that, you can walk straight ahead and up stairs behind Rosedale Station to Crescent Road, or angle to the right and up a steep slope to Cluny Drive. To get home, turn north (left) on Cluny, then east (right) on Crescent Road. On the south side, just after the bridge over Mount Pleasant is a paved path above Mount Pleasant to Scarth Road, which you can take to Sherbourne and then east along Maple and back to Kensington.

Here's the first promised question: Does anyone know more about the city building at the end of Rosedale Valley Road, noted above?

And here's the superterrific answer: Tim Howlett tells us the small brick building with the big fenced parking lot at the bottom of Rosedale Valley Road must be a city parks building. He's been able to read the signs on some of the vehicles. He shares his fantasy, that some day on one of his walks down there, the garage doors will all be open, revealing a "semi-secret café" - yes, please!

Walk #2: Scrivener Square Head north on Glen Road to Crescent Road. Turn left (west) on Crescent Road; walk over Mount Pleasant Road, then take the first right (north) onto Wrentham Place. It dead-ends at Roxborough Street East. Cross to the north side of Roxborough, and turn left (west ); walk one block. Turn right (north) on Chestnut Park, which will turn west. At the next corner, Thornwood Road, turn right (north). After two blocks, Thornwood turns left (west) and becomes Pricefield Road. In two blocks, it turns right (north) at a playground. Walk north along the park for one block to Mathersfield Drive. Turn right (east). Mathersfield forms a loop: follow it east, then north, then west to get back to the playground. There’s no exit from the loop at the east end of Mathersfield. You’ll see it’s a street of newer homes. Your walk back to the playground, along the north side of the loop, will be between garages and the fence along the railroad tracks. It features a great view of the clock tower on the former railroad station, now LCBO, in Scrivener Square.

You can walk through the playground and Scrivener Square to Yonge Street, or turn around and head home. To get home, you can retrace your steps, or turn right (south) onto Cluny Drive after one block on Pricefield, and take it across Rowanwood and Chestnut Park to Roxborough.

Scrivener Square is named for the late Margaret Scrivener, who was an MPP in former Ontario Premier Bill Davis’ cabinet. She and her family lived at 119 Glen Road (east side, north of the bridge, where Highland Avenue dead-ends). Decades ago, every year for Hallowe’en, the Scrivener family placed pumpkins along their roof. The roof had spaces ideal for pumpkins.

Here's the second promised question: Does anyone know the term for the architectural feature (the spaces used for pumpkins) and perhaps the original reason for its design?

And here's the fascinating answer: Bill Angus explains that the places for Hallowe'en pumpkins on 119 Glen Road's roof "are crenellations, and were a feature of most European castles in the middle ages, and probably much earlier into Biblical times. They allowed the defenders of the castle or city walls to pop up briefly at the indentations and fire arrows or pour boiling oil over the walls to deter attacks." Pumpkin placement up there sure was jollier!