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Archaeological Master Plan |
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When is an archaeological assessment required?
In 2005 Toronto City Council approved a system for screening for archaeology as the first phase of implementing the City of Toronto Archaeological Master Plan. All development applications for construction activities submitted to the City of Toronto are reviewed to determine whether the application will impact an undiscovered archaeological site.
When an archaeological assessment or study is required by the City, an archaeologist will conduct the study and take action to mitigate impacts to the archaeological site prior to construction.
This is how the Bishop's Block archaeological site (AjGu-49) was discovered.
During the summer and fall of 2007 it was excavated by Archaeological Services Inc.
Once known as Bishop's Block
The space was once occupied by five town homes that stood on narrow building lots on the north side of Adelaide Street West in the fashionable "Bishop's Block." For a brief time, circa 1836, one house was occupied by the author Anna Jameson (1838), whose novel Winter Studies and Summer Ramble in Canada chronicled some of her time spent living in downtown Toronto. Until recently, only two of the town homes in the Bishop's Block remained. The rear yards of these residences, as well as two of the interiors, were the focus of a Stage 4 mitigative excavation by Archaeological Services Inc.
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| Looking north over the Bishop's Block site |
The Bishop's Block archaeological site is within a larger parcel of land bounded by Simcoe Street to the west, Adelaide Street to the south, and University Avenue to the east. The land has been the subject of a complex process of construction, enlargement and demolition since the land patent was granted in 1801. A previous Stage 1-2 Archaeological Assessment had demonstrated that the rear yard features and foundation of one of the town homes was preserved under the existing asphalt parking surface.
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| Archaeologists screening dirt from stone-lined privy to rear of House 5 |
The high degree to which the remainder of the building lots was preserved was breathtaking, as was the sheer volume of material recovered from the features. Soil samples were also retained from many of the lots for future archaeo-botanical analysis.
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| Some of the complete bottles found in Lot 132, a lense of soil fill in a stone-lined privy vault. |
The archaeological deposits document the evolution of how space was used on these narrow city lots between the 1830s and the 1960s. Preliminary analysis indicates that the original town homes were constructed with a sub-grade rear addition that may have served as a cold storage room. Subsequent alteration to the houses saw the abandonment of this space through infilling and the construction of brick additions on two of the homes. The interior space within the town home on Building Lot 8 ("house 3"), which retained its original chimney piers, was contrasted with that on Building Lot 7 ("house 4"), which had been modified to hold a large coal-burning furnace.
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| Interior of House 3 showing stone chimney platform |
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| The furnace in the basement of town house 4 |
The basement grade in this structure had been lowered and concrete poured on the basement floor. Each backyard contained at least one cistern, a reservoir for collecting and holding rain water, and a privy, an outdoor bathroom, all of which conformed to a general pattern. The privies were placed at the extreme rear of each building lot. A stone box drain that extended through Building Lots 7 and 8 may have extended further east and west but was truncated by subsequent redevelopment.
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| Looking south over the stone box drain and cistern in rear yard of House 3 |
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| Stone-lined privy vault House 5 |
Recovered from the site
Approximately 130 banker's boxes of artifacts have been recovered and their analysis will contribute to our knowledge of daily life in Toronto. A wide range of activities are represented by children's toys, writing slates, an exotic coconut husk, smoking pipes, and the commonly used container glass and ceramics found on domestic archaeological sites. Particularly exciting is the appearance of ceramic wares marked with the brown-printed stamp of Glover Harrison's China Hall business on nearby King Street. This mark has turned up on other nineteenth-century sites in the city (Blaubergs 1992).
Now that the archaeological excavation is complete, in 2008, Westbank Project Corp. will begin construction on the new Shangri-La hotel and condominium residences, opening a new chapter in the history of this city block.
References Cited:
Blaubergs, Ellen
1992 Glover Harrison and China Hall: Majolica Butters, Five O'Clock Teas and Tete-a-Tete Sets. Arch Notes 92(4):4-9.
Jameson, Anna
1838 Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada. Saunders and Ottley, London
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