Action is needed to restore a damaged section of historic field wall at the former Ontario Reformatory site, local heritage advocates insist, calling on the provincial government to step up to the plate.
"This is a tragic loss to a major component of the reformatory grounds,” P. Brian Skerrett, local heritage advocate and former chair of Heritage Guelph, said via email. “I really think it's incumbent on the province, as owners and stewards of this property, to repair and restore this heritage feature.”
Earlier this week a four-metre long section of the field wall lining the driveway to the main building was damaged, with large rocks strewn about the area.
The wall was built by reformatory inmates around 1920 and is a designated heritage feature under the Ontario Heritage Act.
In addition to providing a glimpse into the past, the field wall is an important tourist attraction, said Susan Ratcliffe, chair of the local Architectural Conservancy of Ontario chapter and a Yorklands Greenhub board member. Greenhub officials regularly lead tours of the former reformatory site, with one specifically focused on the field wall.
“It’s one of the longest stone walls in Canada,” said Ratcliffe. “It is beautiful.”
The field wall is a protected feature of the York Road site. City council unanimously agreed to a Part IV designation for it under the Ontario Heritage Act in 2021.
That designation is meant to preserve structures of identified cultural heritage value for future generations.
“It’s discouraging … why would someone do that,” Ratcliffe said of the damage, which she referred to as vandalism. “To destroy one of the key landscape features … is just an insult to all the work of all different kinds that’s been done over the years.”
Several people told GuelphToday the damage must have occurred overnight Wednesday into Thursday, as the wall was intact during the day Wednesday and the damage evident on Thursday morning.
“The rocks have been thrown around deliberately, it’s not a squirrel,” said Ratcliffe, noting the damage doesn’t appear to be naturally occurring. “My god, it’s stood there all this time. … I don’t know how they did that.”
Repeated efforts to reach representatives of Infrastructure Ontario, which manages provincially owned properties on the government’s behalf, weren’t successful.
“Someone would need some super, duper equipment to do that,” Jaclyn Goldman, who owns Guelph Urbex Walking Tours and regularly takes people around the former reformatory lands (not inside buildings), said of the damage. “It’s really bizarre.”
That specific section of the wall is a part of the Urbex tours because there are a couple signatures in the mortar nearby. The signatures weren’t damaged.
Though she’d like to see the province restore the field wall, Ratcliffe doubts that will happen, as it “let it (the reformatory and related heritage features) deteriorate.”
“I don’t think they care about this stuff,” she said.
Asked what she’d say to the person or persons responsible for the damage, Ratcliffe responded, “What the hell are you thinking?”
