Cross Valley Connectors

Todmorden’s roads and bridges were a vital transportation network for trade and travel across the Don Valley. 

Before 1800, when the first mills were built at Todmorden, the volume and velocity of the Don River was much greater than it is today, and the river was the first transportation route through the valley. In summer, it was navigable by boat or canoe from the bay up to the flood plain south of Todmorden. In winter its frozen surface created an clear highway for horse-drawn sleighs carrying people and merchandise to and from farms and industries north of the city.

John Elliott Woolford "Mill Three Miles from York" 1819. Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1979-9-29

In 1798, Timothy Skinner was ordered to "open a road" from the town of York to the mills that two of his sons, Isaiah and Aaron, had built on the Don in 1795. This road to the Don mills, now Broadview Avenue, ran north from Queen Street along the eastern ridge of the Don Valley, and turned down the hill at Pottery Road, following a route across the ravine already in use as a First Nations footpath. The  Don Mills Road was later extended northward to service the farms and mills near the Forks of the Don.

A rare paved road uncovered at Todmorden Mills

Photos Historic Horizon, Inc.

Todmorden's bridge linked the two sections of the brick road.

Excavations for roadway improvements at Todmorden in 2010 uncovered a section of a c.1900 brick road that once connected the mill site with the kilns and quarries of the Don Valley Brick Works. In use until 1960. The road was used to transport bricks out of the valley by horse-drawn cart and later by truck, and by Brick Works employees crossing from villages on the east side of the valley. The road's surface was paved with red bricks and edged with steel rails. Misfired bricks and debris from the kilns were recycled as fill in the road bed.

Toronto, 1908 Toronto Archives Fonds 1244 William James

Muddy road conditions plagued early Toronto travellers and merchants. "The roades are so bad they are killing our horses,” wrote brewery owner, William Helliwell in his journal in 1833.
Land grant recipients in Upper Canada, such as the settlers at Todmorden, were required to help in clearing land and improving roads, but paved, or "macadamized" roads were rare in the 1800s. Even into the 20^th century many Toronto roads were rough unpaved wagon tracks, sometimes impassable in wet weather. 

 

The Todmorden bridge crosses the Don River and connects the two sections of the brick road, 1931.

Before construction of the Don Valley Parkway, the Don River flowed in a large meander, or oxbow, under Todmorden’s bridge.  The bridge linked the two sections of the brick road, connecting Pottery Road to the Brick Works on the other side of the valley. The old brick road ran in a straight line from the bridge to the Brick Works, passing under the railway trestle. 

Todmorden's bridge before the 1920s elevation of the embankment.

Todmorden was frequently threatened by destructive floods, and the embankments for the bridge have been elevated several times to lift it above flood level. The bridge piers, built in layers of different materials, record multiple efforts to protect this crucial transportation link.The flagstone layer dates from 1920, while the piers at the base are one of earliest  of examples of the use of poured concrete in Toronto.

Between 1847 and 1900, Todmorden’s mills closed, and their buildings were repurposed to provide housing for Brick Works employees and stables for horses. As the site was elevated with landfill to protect it from the flooding river, earlier structures, including the first storeys of the paper mill and the brewery, and their mill races, were filled in and buried.

 

 

Construction of the Don Valley Parkway bisected Todmorden Mills. The Don River was channelized and moved to the western side of the expressway.  Pottery Road, which once ran across the valley and up the Cudmore Creek ravine, now ends at Bayview Avenue.

A 1955 aerial plan for the expressway construction shows the former paths of the Don River oxbow, Pottery Road, Todmorden’s bridge and head mill race, and the road to the Brickworks.

Dotted lines show the former paths of the Don River and Todmorden's brick road to the Brick Works.