Todmorden Mills

Todmorden Mills began around 1795 as a sawmill on the Don River, supplying lumber for the growing Town of York. In 1821 the Helliwell family settled the site, adding a brewery and distillery and renaming the settlement "Todmorden" after their hometown in Lancashire, England. Over the 19th century the site grew into a small industrial hamlet: a grist mill, paper mills that produced York's first machine-made paper, the brewery and distillery, and housing for mill workers, all powered by the river.

A heritage site and nature preserve

Todmorden Mills opened to the public as a heritage site in 1967, as East York's contribution to Canada's centennial celebrations. The present-day site combines two historic houses, gallery and theatre space, and a relocated historic Don train station, alongside a 9.2-hectare wildflower and nature preserve with trails through upland forest, bottomland forest, swamp, pond and meadow habitats — an industrial-heritage museum paired with a genuine nature preserve on a working stretch of the Don.

Sources

• City of Toronto — Todmorden Mills
• The Canadian Encyclopedia — Toronto Feature: Todmorden Mills