weekly photography challenge | Mama Cormier

….just before the winds really started to blow yesterday

Thanks to Norm for hosting

Yesterday was an incredibly windy day here in southern Ontario. There was a lot of wind damage across the province. I had a late morning appointment in Mississauga and I decided to venture down to the lake to check out the waves. Incredibly much of the clouds were blown away and the sun and some blue sky managed to peak through the remaining clouds.

One of the unexpected pluses of journeying down to the lake was coming across this beautiful old mansion that has since become a historical site and campus for the Royal Conservatory of Music.

According to Wikipedia:

The land on which the property is built was acquired by Joseph Cawthra in 1809. The farmland, which came to be known as the Grove Farm, was granted to Agar Adamson and Mabel Cawthra as a wedding gift.^[2]

Agar Adamson, born on Christmas Day 1865, was the grandson of William Agar Adamson an influential Toronto clergyman. He married into the Cawthra family whose legacy in Peel lives on through the Cawthra Estate located near the intersection of the Cawthra Road and the Queen Elizabeth Way. Their legacy comes from supplying eastern white pine logs for ship masts in the British Royal Navy.^[3]^[4] by Sandra Gwyn. He served under General Arthur Currie. Insights into his time at war may be seen in the CBC series The Great War[2] which features Talbot Papineau, another of the four Canadians featured in the book.

Agar Adamson designed and built the Belgian-style mansion on this land in 1919, after returning from the wartime service in France. In 1943, his son Anthony Adamson added a home for himself on the property.