King Street

King Street is the main street of downtown Brockville, Ontario, a river town on the St. Lawrence in the Thousand Islands region. The town was founded by Loyalist settlers in the 1780s and named after Major-General Isaac Brock, and King Street grew up as its commercial spine, lined with the banks, shops and hotels of a prosperous nineteenth-century port. Today it still carries the look of that period, with brick and stone buildings, decorative cornices and tall windows, and it is an easy street to enjoy on foot.

The best-known stop is at the eastern end, where Fulford Place stands at 287 King Street East. This large Edwardian mansion was built around the turn of the twentieth century for George Taylor Fulford, a Brockville businessman and senator who made his fortune from patent medicine. The house sits above the river with landscaped grounds designed by the Olmsted Brothers firm of Massachusetts, and it was given to the Ontario Heritage Trust in the late 1980s, which now manages it as a museum. Inside, the rooms are furnished much as they were when the family lived there, with wood panelling, fine fittings and a sense of how wealthy families lived in the age before the First World War. Guided tours take visitors through the rooms and explain the family’s story, and the opening season runs through the warmer months, so check the Ontario Heritage Trust before you go.

Along the street, the Brockville Museum, a short walk away in the downtown area, tells the story of the town, from its Loyalist beginnings and its role as a river port and railway centre to its modern identity. Exhibitions, walking tours and programs bring the local history to life, and the museum is a good place to start if you want context for the streets you walk. The Brockville Art Gallery and the Brockville Armoury, a handsome heritage building, are also within reach, and the old court house, with its green and fountain, lies close to the main street.

The riverfront is a short walk away, and the St. Lawrence River Waterfront Trail runs along it, with the Brockville Railway Tunnel and parkland by the water. From the quay, boat tours cruise among the Thousand Islands in season. Visitors who have a car can drive east to Upper Canada Village, near Morrisburg, a living-history museum of nineteenth-century rural life, though that is a separate outing.

King Street suits those who like architecture and small-town history, and a stroll takes about an hour, longer if you visit Fulford Place or the museum. Cafes and restaurants provide places to rest, and the streets are quiet in the evening. Opening hours for individual sites change with the season.