July 2023
The small community of Limehouse, in the rural southern Ontario Town of Halton Hills, is a former village that dates back to the early days of Upper Canada. Today, it’s home to around 800 people, with a small public school, a community centre and numerous scenic walking trails throughout the Limehouse Conservation Area. Some of the trails take hikers past the ruins of Limehouse’s past.
Originally known as Fountain Green, it was first settled in 1820 at the intersection of the Fifth Line and Sideroad 22, it would grow from its logging and agricultural beginnings, to become a busy town by the 1840s, known for its limestone quarrying and the “burning” of limestone in kilns to make lime. The lime produced would be used as mortar for the local buildings.
A woolen mill, sawmill and a paint factory, using coloured clay from the area, also popped-up, providing goods and employment in the area. Black Creek was dammed at the south-east end of the town, creating a mill pond to provide water power to lime industry buildings and the sawmill.
The Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) built a rail line through Limehouse in 1856, requiring 200 workers and their families to settle in the area. Many of the families stayed in the community after the rail line was completed. This line remains in use today, now owned by Canadian National Railways (CNR), which bough the bankrupt GTR in 1923.
The big innovation in lime kilns came with the creation of the draw kiln, which were the primary form of lime kiln for large scale production well into the nineteenth century. The draw kilns were more efficient than the earlier set or pot kiln since it could operate on a more continuous basis, being constantly fed coal and limestone from above, with draw holes located in tunnels at the base of the kilns.
The draw kiln at Limehouse, which was completed in the 1860s, standing 52-feet-high.
The operators of the lime quarry occasionally needed blasting powder for breaking up larger chunks of the limestone extracted from the ground. A powder house was built in the 1850s to provide storage for the blasting powder. Built masonry-covered course limestone, with walls 21-inches thick, the curved bunker was built in a small depression in the quarry floor to limit blast damage from an accidental explosion.
Blasting was continued until around 1917, when the quarry had expanded to the point where the local residents feared the explosions would cause damage their homes. This also led the quarry owners closing down the lime kilns and the quarry operations, due also in part to changing economic demands.
Lime kilns continued operating in nearby Dolly Varden until 1931, when they too shut down.
At it’s height, Limehouse was a busy community with three hotels, three stores and several mills, in addition to the lime industry. In 1876, around 4130 tons of lime and lumber were shipped from the GTR station.
After the decline of the industry in Limehouse, the dam that created the mill pond was demolished, with the pond has reverting to marshland.
The Toronto Suburban Railway (TSR), an electric passenger railway service, also build a rail line through Limehouse in 1917, a part of their line running from Keele Street and Dundas Street, to Guelph. The rail line passed over the south end of the mill pond and crossing the Fifth line, just south of the bridge over Black Creek, where there was a small passenger station.
The TSR ceased operations in 1931 and the tracks were removed. The railway pilings remaining in the former mill pond are about all that remains, although the faint outline of the railway right-of-way can be seen running north-west from Fifth Line, across Side Road 22, and north of the Georgetown Revolver Club building, where it meets up with the CNR line.
Around 1967, the Credit Valley Conservation Authority acquired approximately 200 acres, which became the Limehouse Conservation Area, which includes the lime kiln and powder house. Its network of hiking trails includes the Bruce Trail, a 550-mile-long recreational trail that runs from Niagara Falls to Tobermory.
Amongst the modern homes that inhabit Limehouse today, two of the historic buildings that remain are:
Limehouse Memorial Hall
Limehouse Memorial Hall was built in 1876, serving as the Methodist Episcopal Church until 1923. The Limehouse Women’s Institute purchased the former church in 1945 for use as a community hall, dedicating it as Memorial Hall, in honour of the men and women of Limehouse who served in the world wars.
In 1996, Memorial Hall was donated to the newly-formed Limehouse Community Hall Board. It continues to be used regularly as a community centre for public meetings, family gatherings, coffee house evenings and annual community events such as the Sweet Taste of Spring Pancake Breakfast, the Corn Roast and Silent Auction in the fall, the Beef Dinner in November and the Christmas Carol Sing in December.
Gibraltar School, SS#9 Esquesing
Gibraltar School, SS#9 Esquesing, built in 1862 on Fifth Line, originally as a one-storey stone school. A second storey was added in 1875. The second floor was closed from 1891 to 1954, but then re-opened as it was needed to accommodate students from four one-room schools in nearby communities of Bannockburn, Gibraltar, Blue Mountain, along with the one in Limehouse, that had recently closed.
While Gibraltar School provided education to children from Grades 1-8, facilities were extremely limited, as the school had only had six classrooms, no gym, no library nor a music room, although it’s likely that some of those activities were held outside in the good weather.
Gibraltar School closed in 1962, when the present Limehouse Public School opened in the centre of town of Side Road 22. The former school is now a private residence.
The Limehouse Kiln Society (LKS) was formed more than three years ago under the leadership of resident Mary Sheir to “promote and preserve the historic significance of the lime industry in Limehouse through education, restoration and accessibility.”
Sources: Limehouse, Ontario – Wikipedia, Limehouse Conservation Area – Wikipedia, The Country Connection Magazine Story: The Kilns of Limehouse (pinecone.on.ca), Fifth_Line_-_22_Sideroad.pdf (peelregion.ca), Limehouse | Hiking the GTA, Home | hall (limehousemh.wixsite.com), SS#9 Gibraltar -Limehouse: Halton Hills Images (vitacollections.ca), Limehouse School— 50 years later (theifp.ca), The Historic Village of Limehouse – Google Docs (esquesinghistoricalsociety.com), Bruce Trail – Wikipedia, Limehouse a hub of industrial activity in the 1800s – Halton Hills News (haltonhillstoday.ca).
