Maryhill Cottage 40th Anniversary

Perhaps it seems odd to write a piece about purchased property, but we have put our heart and soul into this place.  Other than pouring the foundation and laying the brick; we built the house with our own labour over many years.

December 1971, was the purchase date for the property.  The land was at the end of a lovers lane with two deep wheel ruts for a road.  We had been looking at properties that fall with Brian and Mary Jane and one weekend we drove down what was then Concession Road 2.  Later we came to know it by the local name; the Dead Second. All the old lot and concession terminology is gone now, replaced by road names and property numbers.  Our road runs along the Thames River valley bottom land to where our driveway rises up 80' to the valley rim and 700' from the road.  Our house overlooks the river valley from the edge of the rim.

We built a replica of an 1842 gothic cottage that exists
near Lake Erie.  Click once to enlarge.

I believe MJ and Brian were following up a private ad.  I was impressed by the vista and perhaps the country atmosphere along the river.  In 1971 there were only two houses on the road (now there are seventeen).  The first was a farm near the corner with the county road and the other house was located on the property we purchased.

The following week I called the vendor and found that the 52 acre parcel had been divided by two budding speculators.  The south parcel with the house (or what remained of it) had been sold.  The fellow that owned the north half invited us over to his place to talk.  I can't remember how much time it took, but we sensed that he was desperate to sell and we bought the 26 acres for $9200.  That was $354.00 an acre.  A good price even in those days.  As it turned out our new neighbour paid $15,000 for his half and the falling down house.

In April 1972 we hired Ron Jones, a local contractor to cut us a driveway up the rim of the river valley from the cowpath below.  My new neighbour Bob let us do a temporary driveway across his property until the township improved the road to our new driveway.  I played hooky from work that day and was very humiliated when I showed up the next day with a severe sunburn.  I never did that again.  Unfortunately Ron didn't know much about building good driveways on a hill and I didn't either.  After a few more years I had learned enough to make the driveway viable, but it was an expensive lesson with washouts and new gravel.  Next door Bob went one step further and called in Towland Construction ( a large road builder ).  They didn't have small equipment and when they ignored the township bylaw permitting only half loads in the Spring on gravel roads, they managed to destroy the existing road with ruts up to two feet deep.  The township later sued them for the damage and won.  We were all learning this country thing.

Later that month my father-in-law showed up to see our new place.  When he saw the hill from the road he thought we had bought our version of the Brooklyn bridge.  However, as he drove up the driveway and saw the twenty acres of beautiful flat farmland at the top he thought we had done just fine.  That's a farmer for you.

During the 70's we started using the name Maryhill.  When you have a wife named Mary and live on a hill, it's an easy choice.  Years later when we spent time in the UK we noticed that virtually every house had a name plaque.  You couldn't even buy them in Canada.  I was in a hardware store in the Cotswolds and ordered a solid aluminum plaque for 90 pounds with a trillium on it (Ontario's flower).  We have been Maryhill Cottage ever since.