South Hill: The Republic and the Ravine

Part 2 of 3: The South Hill Series. Part 1: The Ridge and the Quiet · Part 3: The Everyday and the Market

Rathnelly is the pocket that talks back. The guide calls it a vibrant village-within-the-city, and its edges are drawn tightly: the railway to the south, Avenue Road to the east, Poplar Plains Road and Poplar Plains Crescent to the west. Inside those lines, the streets are close enough that neighbours have a name for the place. They have more than a name. They have a constitution of sorts, a queen, and a day of their own.

The community story here runs deep enough to have shaped the rest of South Hill. Where Poplar Plains keeps its distance behind lawns and trees, Rathnelly built its identity on organizing — and the two habits still describe the same ridge from different ends.

The Republic Below the Hill

The residents' association traces the neighbourhood to William McMaster's estate. The railway, Avenue Road, Poplar Plains Road and Poplar Plains Crescent frame the pocket. It has its own name and its own account of how a residential district holds together.

In 1967, during Canada's centennial, residents declared the Republic of Rathnelly. They appointed a queen and enlisted children with brooms in an irregular army. The joke acquired a lasting civic purpose. Rathnelly Day began that year and remains a recurring neighbourhood celebration.

The association's history describes academics, artists, journalists and other professionals moving into the area from the late 1950s onward. Residents organized as the Rathnelly Area Residents Association. Their opposition to proposed expressways belongs to the same preservation story as the streets around Casa Loma.

The republic is useful evidence against the idea that discretion means withdrawal. South Hill's guide describes people who value both privacy and community. Rathnelly gives that combination a visible form. There can be a front door to close and a street worth opening it for.

Poplar Plains and Rathnelly therefore offer different versions of belonging. On one, the lot and canopy establish the first impression. In the other, a shared name and a history of organizing do much of the work. Neither needs a commercial centre to make it a neighbourhood.

A Ravine with a Family Name

Nordheimer Ravine carries the name of Samuel Nordheimer, the piano importer whose family lived nearby. In 1871, he and Edith Boulton acquired land beside Poplar Plains Road. Their Glen Edyth mansion followed in 1872. The City's heritage study records a house above grounds containing gardens, orchards and carriage buildings.

Subdivision began in the early 1920s. Glen Edyth Drive follows the old carriage approach; Glen Edyth Place marks the mansion grounds. Those street names preserve the estate after its disappearance.

Below, the ravine offers another kind of continuity. Lost Rivers, the local watershed history project, follows the former Castle Frank Brook through this landscape. Its walking account records oaks on the upper slopes, with other trees occupying the wetter ground below. The valley remains readable even where the original watercourse has been buried.

It is an important distinction. This is a city ravine, crossed and altered by infrastructure, with woodland still occupying the slopes. Its value does not depend on pretending the city never reached it. A walk can move between a residential road and a wooded path without leaving the neighbourhood's daily orbit.

In autumn, the trees make those changes in level easier to see. The canopy thins. A slope hidden by summer leaves becomes visible again. This is one of the quiet pleasures of fall in Midtown: familiar ground, altered by what the trees reveal.

The Park and the House

Sir Winston Churchill Park adds open recreation to the wooded routes. The City lists its playground at 301 St. Clair Avenue West. Tennis belongs here too, with the community club operating on City courts. Poplar Plains Park adds another local green space to the neighbourhood guide's map of daily life.

There is a less visible landscape beneath Churchill Park. The St. Clair Reservoir sits under it. Toronto Archives holds a panorama of the reservoir's construction dated May 22, 1930. The lawns above and the water infrastructure below occupy the same ground. A neighbourhood associated with private houses also rests on work built for the wider city.

Spadina Museum is a separate destination, at 285 Spadina Road beside Casa Loma. Its estate grounds are south of Churchill Park. James Austin bought Spadina in 1866; he and his son later subdivided and sold much of the property. The remaining grounds include an orchard, kitchen garden and grape arbour.

The museum interprets the Austin household and the people who worked there, particularly through the early twentieth century. That second perspective matters. The estate landscape required labour as well as ownership. A garden was also a workplace. The surviving house allows that part of the hill's history to be seen alongside its wealth.

The Austins farmed their original 80 acres. The museum now occupies 5.7 acres. Those figures give the subdivision story a physical measure: the surviving garden represents only a portion of the land once attached to the house.

Taken together, these places give outdoor life several scales:

• The **private garden** behind its own walls
• The **local park** with playground and tennis
• The **ravine route** with its oaks and buried brook
• The **museum grounds**, a working remnant of the estate era

They are separate spaces with separate purposes. Their proximity is what makes the combination useful.

Two versions of belonging, and one ridge underneath both.

Continue reading: Part 3: The Everyday and the Market — schools, transit, dinner, and the six listings that show how the neighbourhood lives today.

References

Republic of Rathnelly, A History of Rebellion and Rathnelly Day, rathnellyrepublic.com.

Lost Rivers, Nordheimer Reach, lostrivers.ca.

Toronto Star, Walk, listen, learn (a lot), February 7, 2021, archived newspaper PDF, fifth PDF page, s3.amazonaws.com. Nordheimer Ravine name and piano-importing business.

City of Toronto, A Stitch in Time, St. Clair Reservoir panorama and Playground Listings, toronto.ca.

Sir Winston Churchill Park Tennis Club, About, swcptc.ca.

City of Toronto, Spadina Museum, toronto.ca.

Jonathan Schwarz, South Hill Real Estate Guide, revgroup.ca.