Over 70 architectural fragments rescued from Toronto's wrecking balls
Guild Park and Gardens
As Toronto tore down its old buildings through the mid-20th century, one collector saved their most striking pieces — columns, arches, facades — and arranged them into an open-air park on the Scarborough Bluffs.
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Guild Park and Gardens was once part of the Guild Inn, a residence built in 1914 for war hero Colonel Harold C. Bickford, later an arts-and-crafts-style mansion surrounded by 400 acres of garden and woodland. From the 1930s, Spencer Clark and his wife Rosa operated it as the Guild of All Arts, an artist colony atop the Scarborough Bluffs.
Rescuing Toronto's demolished buildings
Starting in the 1960s, Spencer Clark began collecting architectural fragments from buildings being demolished across Toronto, arranging them into landscaped gardens on the property. Landmarks preserved this way include a Greek Theatre built from the marble arches of the 1912 Bank of Toronto and the facade of the 1895 Temple Building, once the tallest structure in the British Empire. Metro Toronto and the Government of Ontario bought the property from the Clarks in 1978, converting it into a public park with over 70 sculptures and architectural pieces spread across 36 hectares.
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