For the first few years of New Westminster’s existence, the Columbia Detachment of Royal Engineers, under the command of Colonel Richard Moody, spent a considerable amount of time designing and surveying the new city to be the Colony’s capital.
In reviewing their notes, plans and maps, we can see the detail of the city plan they were creating.
There was apparently a concern, at least on the part of the local paper, the British Columbian, that the city’s layout might not include a major open space, or in the parlance of the time, a pleasure ground, and they expressed that opinion in an article in the summer of 1863.
The maps and plans of the city produced by the Engineers appear to include them, but the article offers some very interesting comments about the overall effort.
The article headed “A Public Park” starts: “With all our gardens, terraces, and crescents, it is a fact that we have not a large park suitable for a pleasure ground of general public resort.”
The people were generally pleased with the overall plan, but it would appear that the concern was about the size of the space. The discussion continued:
“The Chief Commissioner has undoubtedly displayed good taste in the arrangement of the city as well as good judgment in the selection of its site; and of pleasure grounds we have a reasonable number and extent within the city limits. But would it not be wise to lay out a park of 60 or 100 acres contiguous to the city and suitably situated for the purposes of a public pleasure ground?”
The area that was being suggested in this piece as such a site would, in 2016 terms, include the lands from about First Street to the north side of the Glenbrook Ravine, and from the Fraser River reaching inland a fair distance or, as is stated in the article, “extending back as far as might be deemed necessary.”
The recreational area already known as the cricket ground, situated towards the front of today’s Victoria Hill development, was included in this area.
A large part of this suggested area would end up being Queen’s Park, while two other parcels – the former site of the Asylum/Woodlands School, and part of the B.C. Penitentiary (old Royal Engineers’ Camp) – would remain, until recent history, as land for government or institutional use.
One particular note of interest in the 1863 article was their delight in the ravine that we all still enjoy today. The article noted that this would be included:
“…that beautiful and picturesque ravine immediately on this side of the R E Camp, the flat at the mouth of which could, at a trifling expense, be converted into an excellent skating rink during the winter.”
Next time you visit the Glenbrook Ravine Park remember that people in 1863, in a four-year-old New Westminster, thought it was a pretty special place, too.
