Forty-odd Victorian industrial buildings from what was once the largest distillery in the world, pedestrianised and full of galleries.
Gooderham and Worts began as a windmill grinding grain in 1832 and became, by the 1860s, the largest distillery in the world, producing over two million gallons of whisky a year and paying a substantial share of Canada’s excise revenue.
It closed in 1990. The complex — around 40 buildings, mostly 1859 to 1895, in red brick and limestone with cast-iron columns — is the largest and best-preserved collection of Victorian industrial architecture in North America.
It was used as a film set for a decade (over 800 productions, including Chicago and X-Men) before reopening in 2003 as a pedestrian arts and retail district.
What it is now
Entirely pedestrianised, cobbled, and occupied by galleries, design shops, studios, cafés, restaurants and a brewery.
The conversion has been done with restraint — the original signage, tanks, pipework and rail spurs have largely been left in place, and the buildings have not been rendered or over-restored.
Whether it now feels like a genuine district or a very well-executed shopping precinct is a fair question, and the answer depends on the hour. On a Tuesday morning it is quite beautiful.
What to look for
The Stone Distillery of 1859, the oldest and largest building, in limestone.
The Pure Spirits building and the Tank House, whose name is literal.
Trinity Street and Case Goods Lane, the two best lanes.
Balzac’s Coffee in the old boiler house, and the Mill Street Brewery, which started here and has grown out of it.
Public art throughout, including the large LOVE sculpture and a permanent installation of padlocks on a fence.
The Christmas Market
Held from mid-November to just before Christmas, and one of the largest in North America. It is genuinely atmospheric — the cobbles, the brick and a 50-foot tree — and it is extremely crowded, with timed ticketing on peak evenings.
Go on a weekday afternoon or accept the crush.
Practicalities
Free to enter and open at all hours; individual shops and galleries keep their own times, and many close on Mondays.
Streetcars 504 and 514 stop at Parliament and Mill. It is a twenty-minute walk from Union Station along Front Street, past the Gooderham Building — the 1892 flatiron that is Toronto’s most photographed building.
There is no subway station close by, which is the one inconvenience.
More History
Old Town and St Lawrence Hall
The ten blocks that were the whole of York in 1793, with a Victorian assembly hall where Jenny Lind sang and abolitionists met.
Evergreen Brick Works
A brickworks that supplied half of Victorian Toronto, abandoned, flooded, and turned into a park with a farmers' market in the kilns.