Wychwood Park sits on a height of land that was once the Lake Iroquois shore. The source for Taddle Creek lies to the north and provides the water for the pond found in the centre of the Park. Today, Taddle Creek continues under Davenport Road at the base of the escarpment and flows like an underground snake towards the Gooderham and Worts site and into Lake Ontario. Access to this little known natural area of Toronto is by two entrances one at the south, where a gate prevents though traffic, and the other entrance at the north end, off Tyrell Avenue, which provides the regular vehicular entrance and exit. A pedestrian entrance is found between 77 and 81 Alcina Avenue.

Wychwood Park was founded by Marmaduke Matthews and Alexander Jardine in the third quarter of the 19th century. In 1874, Matthews, a landscape painter, built the first house in the Park (6 Wychwood Park) which he named “Wychwood,” after Wychwood Forest near his home in England. The second home in Wychwood Park, “Braemore,” was built by Jardine a few years later (No. 22). When the Park was formally established in 1891, the deed provided building standards and restrictions on use. For instance, no commercial activities were permitted, there were to be no row houses, and houses must cost not less than $3,000.

By 1905, other artists were moving to the Park. Among the early occupants were the artist George A. Reid (Uplands Cottage at No. 81) and the architect Eden Smith (No. 5). Smith designed both 5 and 81, as well as a number of others, all in variations of the Arts and Crafts style promoted by C.F.A. Voysey and M.H. Baillie Scott in England. Between the two World Wars, a number of smaller houses were built when the Wychwood Park Trustees sold a portion of small lots along the western side of the Park. These houses varied stylistically from the earlier larger homes. After 1950, a few “modern” houses were erected on undeveloped lots.

In the 1980s the Park was threatened by the demolition of the large house at No. 16 for the purpose of redevelopment. This provided the impetus for the Park Trustees and other residents of the Park to seek designation of the Park as a Heritage Conservation District under Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act. After many meetings with Park residents and with the assistance of the Toronto Historical Board, a District Plan was approved by City Council and By-Law 421-85 was passed and approved by the Ontario Municipal Board in March 1986.

John Blumenson