Cabbagetown walk map: the heritage route, stop by stop, on one sheet

The plan above is the whole heritage walk on one screen. Each number marks a stop; the dotted line between them is the route, about 3.5 kilometres from the glasshouses of Allan Gardens in the southwest to the gates of St. James Cemetery in the north. Select a number and the note for that stop comes up beside the plan, with the address and a link to the page that covers it in detail.

The full descriptions, with what to look for at each stop, are on the heritage walk page. This page is the map for the pocket.

How the Cabbagetown walk map is drawn

The streets, parks and cemeteries come from OpenStreetMap, the open map maintained by volunteers. Nothing is traced by hand: every street line is the geometry recorded in that database, projected to scale and drawn in the colours of this guide. Three weights of line separate the main roads (Parliament, Carlton, Gerrard, Wellesley, Sherbourne) from the smaller streets and from the short residential blocks.

One adjustment makes the plan easier to read. Toronto’s street grid does not run true north. Parliament Street, like most of the north-south streets downtown, leans about sixteen degrees west of north. The plan is turned by that amount so that the grid stands upright on the page, which is how most people picture the city anyway. The small needle in the corner points to true north, for anyone orienting themselves with a compass or the sun.

The area covered runs from Jarvis Street in the west to the Don River in the east, and from Gerrard Street in the south to the edge of Bloor Street in the north. Cabbagetown proper sits inside that frame, east of Parliament; Allan Gardens, where the walk begins, lies just outside it. The boundary page shows where the heritage districts draw the edges.

Using the map on the walk

On a phone, the plan sits at the top of the page and the list of stops below it. Tap a number to jump to its note. The page does not follow your location, so match the street names on the plan to the signs at each corner as you go.

Printed, the page keeps the plan and the numbered list and drops everything else. One sheet is enough, and paper has the advantage of never running out of battery halfway down Metcalfe Street.

The numbers follow the order of the walk, but nothing forces you to keep to it. The route is a single line, so it can be started at any stop and walked in either direction. Riverdale Farm at stop six makes a good alternative start for families; Parliament and Carlton at stop two suits anyone arriving by streetcar from the east.

What the plan leaves out

A plan at this scale cannot show everything. Laneways, footpaths through the parks and the paths inside the cemeteries are simplified or left out, and the plan says nothing about the slope at the valley edge, which is steep below Riverdale Park West. Buildings are not drawn at all; the grey blocks between the streets are simply the spaces the streets enclose.

It also leaves out most of the neighbourhood. Ten stops are a selection, and the streets between them hold as much as the stops themselves: Amelia Street, Salisbury Avenue, the short blocks north of Wellesley, the rows along Sumach. With the full street grid on the plan, it is easy to leave the dotted line for a block or two and find the way back to it.

Reading the plan

Even without the route, the plan explains a good deal about Cabbagetown. Look at the eastern edge first. The street grid simply stops where the ground falls into the Don Valley, and the green band of Riverdale Park, the farm and the Toronto Necropolis fills the space between the last houses and the river. None of the east-west streets crosses the valley here; Gerrard Street, at the bottom of the plan, is the nearest road bridge.

Then look at the two cemeteries. St. James Cemetery, opened in 1844, and the Toronto Necropolis, opened in 1850, both sit on high ground at the valley edge, north and east of the rows. They were laid out when this was still the fringe of the city, and the houses grew up around them in the decades that followed.

The streets themselves tell the rest. Parliament runs straight up the western side as the one long commercial street. East of it the blocks are short and the streets are narrow, with names like Metcalfe, Sackville and Sumach running north and south between Carlton, Winchester and Wellesley. Compare them with the wider blocks south of Gerrard Street, at the foot of the plan. Much of that area was cleared in the 1940s for the Regent Park housing project, and the street pattern there has never matched the old rows since.

Getting to the start

The walk begins at Allan Gardens, on Carlton Street between Jarvis and Sherbourne. The 506 Carlton streetcar runs along Carlton Street past the park and on to Parliament Street, where it turns south towards Gerrard. From the Yonge subway line, the walk east along Carlton from College station takes about ten minutes.

Arriving from the east, it is simpler to start at stop two, the corner of Parliament and Carlton, and to save Allan Gardens for the end or for another day. The paths inside Riverdale Farm and the cemeteries are for walking, so anyone arriving by bike should lock up on the street.

Whichever way you arrive, check the TTC’s trip planner on the day. Streetcar routes in the east end are diverted from time to time for track work, and a diversion can move the nearest stop by several blocks.

Before you go

Riverdale Farm lists its hours as 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, and the cemeteries close their gates in the evening, so a walk that starts in the afternoon should reach stops six, seven and ten in good time. Entry to the farm is free. Wellesley Cottages and the courtyards of Spruce Court are private property and are seen from the street only.

For the history behind the stops, see Cabbagetown history; for the houses themselves, the house-style spotter turns the rooflines you pass into names.