Kara Knows London
Woodfield · Guide 3 of 9

The architecture you'll see, a Woodfield walking guide

Ten styles in twelve blocks. How to read Victorian London on foot, and which addresses to walk to first.

Why Woodfield’s housing stock is unusually diverse

Most Canadian neighbourhoods built before 1914 are stylistically narrow, a single decade of speculative subdivision under a single set of taste-makers. Woodfield is different. It was filled in over roughly forty years (1870–1910), across two full sweeps of architectural fashion, by people who were not a single class.

London was incorporated as a town in 1840 and a city in 1855. By the 1860s it was wealthy on military money, the Great Western Railway, and a growing professional class. Bishop Benjamin Cronyn’s stone house “The Pines” went up between William and Adelaide in the 1840s; merchant villas followed; speculative builders filled in the side streets through the 1880s and 1890s with anything from $1,200 workers’ cottages to $20,000 Queen Anne piles for industrialists. The result is a neighbourhood where a Labatt-family mansion can sit two doors from a labourer’s gable-front cottage, both built within a decade of each other. The Canadian Register entry for East Woodfield names ten distinct architectural styles in a single 154,000 m² rectangle. That density of variety, across class, decade, and taste, is the actual story.

A style-by-style guide

Italianate (Ontario peak: c. 1860–1885)

The earliest dominant style in Woodfield, and arguably the prettiest. Low-pitched hipped roof, deep eaves on paired scrolled brackets, tall narrow windows with curved or segmental heads, quoins at the corners, square massing that reads stately rather than busy. Bay windows almost always; verandahs common. Italianate was the merchant class’s house, too elaborate for a worker, too formal for the artist class that came later. The 1874 double Italianate on Princess just south of Waterloo is a clean exemplar, deep cornice, scrolled brackets, pedimented window heads, quoins, arched windows with curved mullions. 500 Dufferin Avenue (the James Duff Smith house) has one of the best-preserved Italianate cornices in the district. Diagnostic tip: paired brackets under the eaves plus tall rounded windows means Italianate, not Queen Anne.

Gothic Revival (Ontario peak: c. 1850–1880)

Gothic Revival in Woodfield is mostly the modest Ontario-Gothic farmhouse variant transplanted into the city: a 1.5-storey gable-front-and-wing with a steeply pitched centre gable, a pointed-arch (“Gothic”) window in that gable, and decorative bargeboard trimming the eaves. On larger buildings, expect polychromatic brick, pointed-arch openings throughout, and steep cross-gabled rooflines. The style scaled down well, a builder could put a pointed-arch attic window on a worker’s cottage for a few extra dollars and call it Gothic. First-St. Andrew’s United Church, 350 Queens Avenue (1869, William Robinson) is the neighbourhood’s reference Gothic Revival in masonry. Diagnostic tip: if the steepest thing on the house is a centre gable with a pointed window in it, that’s Gothic Revival. Italianate roofs are too shallow.

High Victorian Gothic (peak: c. 1870–1885)

A muscular, polychromatic cousin of Gothic Revival, mostly seen on Woodfield’s churches. Dichromatic brickwork (red and buff banding), pointed arches, steep slate roofs, patterned slate, ornate iron cresting. Bishop Cronyn Memorial Church, 442 William Street (1873) is the textbook example, Anglican, named for the first Bishop of Huron whose estate gave the neighbourhood its name. Diagnostic tip: if the brick is doing two colours and the arches are pointed, it’s High Victorian Gothic, not plain Gothic Revival.

Second Empire (Ontario peak: c. 1865–1885)

The mansard-roofed style imported from Napoleon III’s Paris, and the easiest to identify on the street, because the mansard roof (steep-sided, near-flat on top, with dormers punched into the slope) is unmistakable. Slate cladding, often patterned. Heavy bracketed cornice at the wall-line where the mansard begins. In Ontario, Second Empire was the high-bourgeois style of the 1870s, government buildings, banks, and the houses of men who wanted to look like bankers. Woodfield’s pure Second Empire stock is thinner than its Italianate or Queen Anne, but 308 Princess Avenue (1895, Herbert Matthews) carries a multi-gabled slate mansard along with sandstone walls and twin polygonal turrets, a late, eclectic interpretation. Diagnostic tip: if there are dormers and the roof has two slopes (steep below, near-flat above), it’s Second Empire.

Queen Anne (Ontario peak: c. 1885–1905)

The exuberant style of the 1890s and the one most people picture when they hear “Victorian.” Queen Anne is asymmetrical by design. Look for a corner tower or turret (often with a conical “witch’s-hat” roof and finial), a wraparound verandah with turned posts and spindled friezework, multiple gable orientations, patterned shingles in the gables, a Palladian window somewhere prominent, and stained glass transoms. Expensive to build; ostentatious by intention. 527 Princess Avenue (1899–1900, built for portrait photographer Frank Cooper, individually designated 1986) is the canonical Woodfield Queen Anne, corner tower, conical roof and finial, wraparound veranda, white brick with cut-stone detailing, a Palladian window in the gable, five chimneys. Diagnostic tip: if you can’t tell which side is the front, it’s Queen Anne.

Edwardian Classical (Ontario peak: c. 1900–1915)

Once Queen Anne tipped from fashionable into fussy, the next generation built houses that look drawn with a ruler. Edwardian Classical is symmetrical where Queen Anne was asymmetrical. Hipped roof, central dormer, Doric or Ionic columns on a full-width verandah (not turned spindles), Palladian windows used as restrained classical quotation, pedimented or bas-relief porch detailing. 414 Dufferin Avenue (1904, built for Samuel N. Sterling) is the cleanest local example, Doric columns, verandah pediment with bas-relief infill, Palladian windows on the second and third floors. Diagnostic tip: smooth round columns and a symmetrical facade, Edwardian Classical. Turned spindles and asymmetry, Queen Anne.

Four-Square (Ontario peak: c. 1900–1925)

The everyman house of the early 20th century, a deliberate reaction to Victorian excess. Cubic two-and-a-half-storey massing, hipped roof, central dormer, full-width front porch on simple square or Tuscan columns, four roughly square rooms per floor. Built for the middle class, clerks, tradesmen, schoolteachers, not industrialists. The 412–414 Dufferin block has good examples; the stretch of William Street between Princess and Queens also reads heavily Four-Square. Diagnostic tip: if the house looks like a cube with a pyramidal hip on top and one big dormer in the middle, it’s a Four-Square.

Ontario Cottage (Ontario peak: c. 1840–1890)

The modest end of Woodfield, and the reason the neighbourhood doesn’t read as a single tax bracket. A 1.5-storey gable-roofed house, usually with a centre gable (often with a Gothic-pointed window in it), a small front porch, and a tight rectangular footprint. Brick or wood-frame. Built for a couple of hundred dollars in the 1870s for working families, sometimes under 1,000 square feet. Mixed in among mansions on Hope Street, Colborne, and the side streets between William and Adelaide. The 14–16 Hope Street terrace and the 535–537 Colborne pair (1872, built by marble cutters Charles Teale and John Screaton) are documented worker-terrace examples. Diagnostic tip: 1.5 storeys, centre gable, modest footprint, Ontario Cottage. Add a tower and it isn’t.

Tudor Revival (Ontario peak: c. 1910–1935)

The latest of the Register’s named Woodfield styles, and the rarest. Steeply pitched cross-gabled roofs, half-timbering in the gables (decorative dark wood against stucco or brick infill), tall casement windows in groups, massive brick chimneys, often a Tudor-arched front door. Built for professionals who wanted English-country-house associations. Tudor Revival shows up sparsely along the northern edges of the district where construction continued into the 1910s and 1920s; walk Wolfe and Waterloo north of Princess to spot the half-timbered gables. Diagnostic tip: decorative wood half-timbering in the gable means Tudor Revival. Patterned shingles in the gable mean Queen Anne.

Vernacular and the rest

The Canadian Register also names Prairie/Craftsman (low-slung, deep eaves, exposed rafter tails, knee braces), International (flat roofs, ribbon windows, twentieth-century infill, scarce here), and Vernacular, the catch-all for builder’s houses that don’t commit to a style, most of any 19th-century street.

Materials primer, what Woodfield is actually made of

Brick, mostly. Specifically, buff-yellow brick fired from the limestone-saturated clay of Perth and Middlesex counties, locally and imprecisely called “London brick” or “London white brick.” It’s the same clay belt that produced the “yellow brick road” of southern Ontario towns. Almost every other house in old downtown London is yellow-buff brick, and Woodfield is the densest concentration of it. Red brick appears too, fired from blue-shale clays, usually as accent banding or voussoirs over windows, or full-facade on later (1890s+) homes. Polychromatic brickwork (red against buff, sometimes a third colour at string courses) is a marker of High Victorian Gothic and the wealthier 1880s houses.

Stone is rare and prized. Bishop Cronyn’s “The Pines” was one of only two stone houses in the area, with stone hauled out of the Thames. Of the survivors, 308 Princess Avenue is the standout, rock-faced red sandstone walls with sandstone, brick, and slate detailing. Most other “stone” you’ll see is cut-stone trim, sills, lintels, foundation courses, set into brick walls.

Roofs. Original slate is still in place on a meaningful number of houses; 527 Princess has its steep slate, 308 Princess has patterned red slate. Most other slate was swapped for asphalt through the 20th century. Patterned slate in two colours is a marker of Second Empire and High Victorian Gothic; plain slate is a marker of money.

Wood trim. Bargeboard in gable ends, turned verandah posts, spindled friezes, beadboard porch ceilings, the original carpentry is the most expensive thing to replicate today and the most regulated under the HCD plans. Sash windows (single- or double-hung, divided lights) are the original glazing; replacement matches are a recurring Heritage Alteration Permit topic. Stained glass appears in transoms, sidelights, and stair-landing windows on most Queen Anne and Edwardian houses of any pretension.

Notable individual buildings

A 60–90 minute self-guided walking loop

Park near Victoria Park at Richmond and Central. The loop runs roughly 3 km.

  1. Start: SE corner of Victoria Park. Look across Richmond at St. Paul’s Cathedral, 472 Richmond, your reference for English Gothic Revival in stone (William Thomas, 1844–46). Buttresses, lancet windows, corner tower; everything else you’ll see today is a domestic adaptation.

  2. East on Dufferin Avenue to 414 Dufferin (south side, between Wellington and Waterloo). Edwardian Classical at its calmest, Doric columns, pedimented verandah, Palladian windows, symmetric facade. 412 Dufferin next door is designated: two attic gables, oval window centred on the second floor, same era, busier hand.

  3. Continue east to 500 Dufferin (James Duff Smith house). Italianate, with the cornice you came to see. Detour: 464–466 Dufferin (“Fitzgerald Corners,” c. 1889), a polychromatic-brick commercial block worth a glance.

  4. South on William Street to 442 William (corner of Queens), Bishop Cronyn Memorial Church, High Victorian Gothic, 1873. Walk around it.

  5. Continue south on William to 481 William and 479 William. Italianate (481, paired brackets, gable detail) and an eclectic Queen-Anne-leaning home (479, Palladian window in the front gable). Two styles, two doors apart.

  6. East on Queens to the NE corner of Queens and William. The 1881 Charles Murray house by George F. Durand, twin towers, two-storey verandah. The neighbourhood’s best Queen Anne / Romanesque blend.

  7. North on William to Princess, then east on Princess, the most representative residential street in Woodfield. As you walk:

    • 310 Princess (1896): white brick, stained-glass transoms.
    • 308 Princess (1895, Herbert Matthews): your Second Empire / eclectic reference, multi-gabled red-slate mansard, twin sandstone turrets, central dormer.
    • 300 and 306 Princess: Queen Anne / Romanesque Revival blend; Palladian window in the third-floor gable; wraparound verandah.
    • The 1874 double Italianate just south of Waterloo at Princess and Waterloo, the textbook example.
    • 527 Princess (1899–1900, Frank Cooper house): canonical Queen Anne, corner tower, conical roof, wraparound veranda, white brick. 529 Princess (1880, Dr. John D. Salter): paired earlier Italianate-leaning, decorative keystones and a pierced-wood centre gable.

  8. At Adelaide, the parkette between William and Adelaide marks the site of “The Pines.” Read the plaque.

  9. North on Adelaide to Pall Mall, then west, working back along Wolfe and Waterloo. 559 Waterloo Street (1908, Wm. J. Legg, now a dental clinic) and 317 Wolfe Street (c. 1900) are corner-tower Edwardian, same vocabulary as the Murray house, twenty years later, completely different proportions.

  10. Detour to 350 Queens Avenue (Queens at Waterloo) for First-St. Andrew’s United Church, Gothic Revival in masonry (1869, William Robinson).

  11. Return west on Queens to Wellington, north to Central, west to Richmond, south to your car. Scan the side streets, Hope, Colborne, the eastern stretches of William, for Ontario Cottages mixed in among the larger houses. The 535–537 Colborne pair (1872) and the 14–16 Hope Street terrace are documented examples.

That’s ten styles in roughly three kilometres. For a shorter version, walk Princess from Waterloo to Adelaide and back, Italianate, Queen Anne, eclectic mansard, Edwardian, and Ontario Cottage in twenty minutes.

What’s not here

Calibrate. Woodfield does not have:

For uniformity drive to Old North (turn-of-the-century, more consistent), Wortley (Edwardian streetcar suburb), or Masonville (postwar). Woodfield is the late-Victorian variety pack, and it is the only neighbourhood in the city that reads that way.

Sources