Mad Hatter's Tea Room

       Recently, we travelled to Aylmer and visited 'The Mad Hatter Tea Room'. It offers a high tea but we went for the all you could eat buffet. The food was very good and it was like home cooking.
       When you enter the place, it is like being transported to a scene from Alice in Wonderland. There are many ornaments and mementos in the Wonderland theme. For those who enjoy a touch of fantasy, this place is a must to visit.
       It is attached to 'Quaker Barrel Unique Antique and General Store. Beside the tea room is ' the Queen of Hearts Garden'. Unfortunately, it was too early in the season to be open, but it looked like it would be nice to eat your lunch out there.
       It is located on Hwy 3 between Aylmer and St. Thomas

Castle Kilbride

       Recently, we went to visit an interesting site near Kitchener called Castle Kilbride. It was the residence of  James Livingston who was born in Scotland in a town called Kilbride who moved to Canada. This is how it got its name.
       It was constructed in Baden, Ontario in 1877. Its major feature is the interior decorative murals done in the style of the Italian Renaissance. A technique called trompe-l'oeil is used which gives the murals a 3-D effect by means of painted shadows.
       Livingston and his brother John grew flax which was used in hemp for clothing and in linseed oil for oil based paints. Because of the Civil War in the States, a lot of cotton had been used for uniforms and linens, causing a shortage of cotton, so the flax was needed as an alternative.
       The two brothers started a company called 'J&J Livingston Dominion Linseed Oil Company'. It was from the proceeds of this venture that money was available to build the castle. With the development of latex paints, linseed oil was not in demand and so the company failed.Eventually, the castle was sold to the Township of Wilmot. It became a National Historic Site of Canada in 1988.
       The castle is located west of Kitchener in a small town called Baden. The address is 60 Snyder's Road West.

     
     

Kitchener's Pioneer Tower

     This tower overlooks the Grand River Valley and was constructed in memory of Ontario's first inland pioneers. Joseph Schoerg and Samuel Betzner of German descent, arrived here in 1800. The German Company purchased 60000 acres from the Mohawks. In 1805, Dutch and Mennonite settlers arrived, and established an agricultural community.
     The tower was constructed in 1925 to celebrate the German origins of the Waterloo area. In 1926, the tower was officially opened and declared a National Historic Site. It stands 22 metres tall and is topped by a weather vane in the shape of a covered wagon to commemorate the arrival of the colonists from Pennsylvania in Connestoga wagons. Beside the tower, the  graves of the Schoerg and Betzner families are situated. It is the oldest non-Aboriginal burial grounds in Ontario.
     It is an interesting piece of history in the Kitchener-Waterloo area and is located at the end of Pioneer Tower Road off  Deer Ridge Drive, east from King Street in Kitchener. The site is part of the Woodside Historic Site in Kitchener.

   

Blair's Sheave Tower

 

       In Blair, a community beside Cambridge, stands a sheave tower. Sheave towers were accessories to mills. The water from a creek would first of all be used to power the mill. Then some of the run off water would be redirected downstream to enter the sheave tower. This would turn a wheel that was inside the tower at its base. This in turn rotated a shaft that went up inside the tower which was connected to a wooden gear called a sheave which acted like a pulley. A cable was looped around this pulley and another pulley at its neighbouring mill, and as the cable rotated around the pullies more power was produced for the mill.
       In 1836, this sheave tower, was built by Allan Bowman. It is 31 feet tall and is considered to be the oldest hydro generating system in Ontario. Its cable no longer exists but originally was connected to Blair Mill located 70 metres away. This provided an extra 15 horsepower for the mill, which ground corn for Schneider's pea meal bacon.
       This has been made into a Heritage site by  the city of Cambridge. It has been restored to its original condition minus the gears, shaft and cable. It is the only one of its kind left in Ontario.
        The tower is located just off Old  Mill Road in the community of Blair just outside Cambridge.

Grimsby Beach

We have done a few cruises over the years but I thought it would be nice to explore and discover tourist attractions in our own backyard, the province of Ontario. So on Easter Sunday we went to visit Grimsby Beach, a small community in Grimsby that used to be a Methodist meeting ground in 1859. Over the years, cottages were built and a large domed temple as well. It also had an amusement park at one time, but the temple and the amusement park are no longer standing.

Many cottages are still there located on very small lanes.. They are very brightly coloured with many of the cottages multi-coloured. It is a picturesque community, almost looking like a dreamscape in a child's painting.

Take a look at the photos that I have included. It is worth a look and it is accessible from Bartlett exit 68 in Grimsby just off  the QEW.