Frederick Peters, Ph.D., Research Fellow, City Institute at York University. The Necropolis is subject to mortality as we all are. On today’s frigid winter visit, it’s fencing sports aloft one glove, one mitt, separated by kind and 150 metres: waiting for reunion with its rightful owner- someone did a great thing!
On the south-west fence are four rather mangled metal uprights, the middle one quite extremely bent, as if pushed in by a spry eccentric horse trying to jump it, who failed. A great tall tree during a storm from Riverdale Park, perhaps Hercules?
Near this part of the fence is the Lee, Brown and Nesbitt family granite column, roughly snapped at some point since the 1880s at eye level. Freeze and thaw cycle one winter? Another granite column, for 1837 pro-democratic “patriots” Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews looks artfully cut away high.
Large English Romantic gardens often had “ruins” installed as points of contemplation of this fleeting mortal coil and the abandoned past. A nearby sandstone column simply washed away its facing in the acid rain of industrial Toronto. The bowl once on its top laid beside it. Such a lovely place to visit, even on these blistery cold days.
