Stratford’s Shakespearean Gardens now designated as historic site

Stratford’s Shakespearean Gardens achieved a rare milestone this week when city councilors unanimously voted, to a round of applause, to award the 90-year-old landmark a heritage designation.

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Built in 1936, the garden at the site of the former Dufton Woolen Mill that features a bust of its playwright namesake, brings a lot of value to the city, heritage advocate Reg White told councillors.

“Stratford is an international center for theater, and this brings people from all across North America. People coming to see excellence in theater, we think they should see excellence in the garden,” White said,

Since 2019, White has been chair of the Friends of the Shakespearean Gardens, a community group that has worked to restore the famous park. Spearheaded by Robert Thomas Orr, one of the city’s most famous residents and a founding member of Stratford’s parks board, the Shakespearean Gardens feature roughly 60 varieties of herbs, flowers, and shrubs that were mentioned in the Bard’s plays.

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“It was our intention to see if we could support park management to get some things done to enhance – the operative word that we’re using is enhance – the Shakespearean Gardens. One thing we got done this year. . . there’s a six-foot wreath that was put up on the Dufton tower, and that was put up just about a month ago,” White said.

The heritage designation applies to several features of the property, including:

• The Dufton chimney tower and its features, including the top structure and its weathervane;
• The original stone walls;
• The Huron Street lychgate;
• The knot garden;
• The herb garden;
• The rose garden;
• The perennial border garden;
• The walkway lamp lighting; and
• The sundial.

Even before the park’s official designation, the Friends had seen a lot of outside support, White noted. In 2022, the group received a donation of 100 peony clumps from the Canadian Peony Societywhich White estimated had a value of roughly $8,000 to $10,000 for an 85-meter perennial flowerbed.

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“So that has been quite a big contribution on our part, along with the Peony Society,” White said.

The push to get official designate the Shakespearean Gardens as a heritage site has been in the works for about a year, he added.

Not only will this designation protect the famous garden for “all time,” it will also make it easier for the Friends of the Shakespearean Gardens to apply for funding, White said.

“It makes it more valuable for us to go and make application for funding, and philanthropic organizations will now be possibly more interested because it’s a designated historic site,” he said.

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