Inside the Museums

Inside the Museums views Toronto's heritage museums for the first time as a single community - linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt, we visit Gibson House, between Sheppard and Finch Avenues, where David Gibson, a leader of the 1838 Rebellion of Upper Canada, lived in this house built in 1851 on his York Township farm. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour of the house, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto's heritage museums for the first time as a single community - linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Spadina House on Davenport Hill, less renowned than its ornate but much later neighbour, Casa Loma, and first erected by landowner and politician Dr. William Baldwin in 1818. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto's heritage museums for the first time as a single community - linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Mackenzie House, the grey-brick townhouse, steps from modern Yonge-Dundas Square and the Toronto Eaton Centre, where the firebrand rebel publisher lived from 1859 till his death in 1861; his family moved out in 1871. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour of the house, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto's heritage museums for the first time as a single community - linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Campbell House, 160 Queen Street West, at the northwest corner with University Avenue, where judge Sir William Campbell (the judge of William Lyon Mackenzie's trial), built his dream home in 1822. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour of the house, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto's heritage museums for the first time as a single community - linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt, we visit the well-known Grange at 317 Dundas Street West, near the Art Gallery of Ontario. More than any other house in Toronto, The Grange, built in 1817, testifies to the years when a tiny, colonial elite connected by blood and marriage - the Family Compact - dominated the government and judiciary. The Grange was home to the Boultons. On the Family Compact tree compiled by critic William Lyon Mackenzie, patriarch D'Arcy Boulton Sr. ranked No. 1. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour of the house, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto's heritage museums for the first time as a single community - linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Montgomery's Inn, on Dundas Street West in present-day Etobicoke. For twenty-five years, beginning in 1830,the hard-working Irish immigrant Thomas Montgomery presided over the place, providing food and lodging to travellers, and creating a social hub for the surrounding area. The inn is not to be confused with (John) Montgomery's Tavern on Yonge Street, rebel headquarters of the 1837 Rebellion. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto's heritage museums for the first time as a single community - linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit one of the jewels in Toronto's historical crown: Fort York. This fort was the famous site of the Battle of York in 1813 and was founded in 1793 as a military outpost; it served as a barracks as recently as the First World War and is one of the city's leading tourist attractions. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto's heritage museums for the first time as a single community - linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt, we visit Colborne Lodge, well known to visitors to Toronto's High Park. The home of prolific architect, surveyor, and engineer John Howard, as a museum, Colborne Lodge stands out for its original paintings and domestic gadgets. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto's heritage museums for the first time as a single community - linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt, we visit Toronto's first post office at 260 Adelaide Street East, a handsome red-brick building still flying the Union Jack, and built in 1834. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour of the house, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto's heritage museums for the first time as a single community - linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit The Market Gallery at 95 Front Street East - the upper floor of the famous St. Lawrence Market. Walk into the market's interior and look back carefully, and you clearly see an earlier building. It is the remains of Toronto's first purpose-built City Hall. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour, providing fascinating historical background and insight.