File:Victoria Park, London, Ontario (21838547495).jpg
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Summary
| Description |
Victoria Park is an 18-acre (7.3 ha) park located in downtown London, Ontario, in Canada. It is one of the major centres of community events in London. The park was originally the site of the British garrison, as well as the cricket grounds. The garrison was expanded with new buildings during and after the Upper Canada Rebellion in 1837. The British troops withdrew to Europe in 1853 to train for the Crimean War, but their barracks were used to house escaped slaves from the United States, as one of the end stations of the Underground Railway. The troops returned in 1861, fearing that the American Civil War might spread to Canada. In 1874, the park was transferred to the city and renamed Victoria Park, after Queen Victoria. The park's original plan was the work of the landscape architect Charles H. Miller, chief gardener of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and designer of the American Centennial Exposition grounds. It is believed that the decision to hire Miller was strongly influenced by William Saunders' visit to the exposition grounds in 1876. Although designated for recreational activities, the park was still used as a military garrison when necessary. As London was the centre of the Western Ontario military district (District No. 1), troops were stationed in the park during the Second Boer War, World War I, and World War II; there was some minor rioting in the park during the Conscription Crisis of 1944, when conscripts demanded to be sent to Europe. In 1907, three cannons from the Crimean War were placed in the park, originally from Sevastopol. In 1912 a statue was built as a memorial to the Boer War, and an exact replica of the cenotaph in Whitehall, London, England was built in 1934. A Sherman tank (known as the "Holy Roller") used in World War II was placed there in 1950. While the park once housed elaborate fountains and a lilypond, there are no water features remaining today. The park is notable for the presence of a large number of melanistic (black) Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis), and because of this, the recreational sport of squirrel fishing has developed in the area. However the squirrel population is not indigenous; they were first introduced to the park in 1914, when four pairs of squirrels were purchased. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Park,_London,_Ontario en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_... |
| Date | |
| Source | Victoria Park, London, Ontario |
| Author | Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA |
| Camera location |  | View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap |  |
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This image was originally posted to Flickr by Ken Lund at https://flickr.com/photos/75683070@N00/21838547495. It was reviewed on 19 December 2016 by FlickreviewR and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0. |
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| Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| current | 15:06, 19 December 2016 | | 4,000 × 3,000 (5.62 MB) | Mindmatrix | Transferred from Flickr via Flickr2Commons |
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