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History and Future of Lansdowne Park

Lansdowne Park in Ottawa has a long history, first being established in 1868 as fairgrounds for the Ottawa Agriculture Society. Over time, it has served various purposes from exhibitions to sports to amusement, but was never truly a park. Its boundaries and features changed significantly over the decades as the city grew around it. By the 1950s, traffic issues arose due to its location. Many proposals were considered for redeveloping Lansdowne Park but removing homes and expanding stadiums met resistance. Recent positive changes in the 1990s restored historic buildings and added parkland, and current ideas involve removing the stadium and midway to make the space greener.

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7 views1 page

History and Future of Lansdowne Park

Lansdowne Park in Ottawa has a long history, first being established in 1868 as fairgrounds for the Ottawa Agriculture Society. Over time, it has served various purposes from exhibitions to sports to amusement, but was never truly a park. Its boundaries and features changed significantly over the decades as the city grew around it. By the 1950s, traffic issues arose due to its location. Many proposals were considered for redeveloping Lansdowne Park but removing homes and expanding stadiums met resistance. Recent positive changes in the 1990s restored historic buildings and added parkland, and current ideas involve removing the stadium and midway to make the space greener.

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A History of Lansdowne Park

by John Leaning

The recent news that the south stadium at Lansdowne Park, built in 1962, is possibly
collapsing, gives cause to examine the history and future of the so-called park. It has been
many things since 1868, when the canal ordinance land east of Bank Street was offered to
the Ottawa Agriculture Society for the purpose of a fairground. Since then, it has been
used for exhibitions, spectator sports and participatory sports, and an amusement midway,
but never actually as a park.
The canal shoreline and eastern and southern boundary of Lansdowne Park was originally
different; the "park" consisted of a peninsula on which sat the home of a Mr. Craig, just
opposite Pig Island. The inlet behind extended from the present lily pond north of Fifth
Avenue to just in front of the Aberdeen Pavilion built in 1898. The fairground cum
exhibition first consisted of a motley collection of wooden buildings which burned down in
1907, fortunately leaving the Aberdeen Pavilion, the largest freespan building of its kind in
North America. It was Colonel By who determined the east and south boundaries of the
fairground and the Glebe in 1826. The canal was moved there because of the actions of a
Captain LeBreton who had acquired the LeBreton Flats lands across which the canal was
originally intended to pass.
When the park was first created, it was outside the city. By the 1930s, the Glebe
residential area had encompassed it. But even though the Driveway had been built along its
eastern side in 1926, traffic access to the park by the 1950s was limited and started to
cause problems of congestion and pollution in the surrounding areas. Lansdowne Park was not
originally intended as a spectator sports ground as it is now. The Rough Riders football team
did not appear until 1896. They lasted 100 years, until their demise due to mismanagement
in 1996. The use of the park as a commercially operated midway by Amusements of America
did not appear until 1964. It is the primary reason why we now have a vast asphalt parking
lot where playing fields used to be - even though the midway only lasts for ten days each
year.
In 1970, there was a serious proposal to extend Lansdowne Park northwards to Fifth
Avenue and Bank Street, which would have required the removal of 150 homes. Fortunately,
that idea was quashed by city council under considerable pressure from the Glebe
Community Association. However, the GCA was unable to prevent the expansion of the south
stadium in 1975, the portion of the stands now in a state of collapse. Since 1972, there have
been about eight different design proposals for the park, including the removal of the
midway to outside of Ottawa.
Some very positive moves were made in the 1990s. The Aberdeen Pavilion was restored, a
children's playground was created in the northeast corner and much of the canal ordnance
lands adjacent to the Driveway were made into attractive parkland. Some ideas being
contemplated are the removal of the stadium, removal of the midway and replacement of
the vast asphalt parking lot with ornamental gardens and playing fields.
Courtesy of the Glebe Report, October 12, 2007

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