Old Pics Of Hamilton

[Ahatmose]

Originally Posted by bluevue

were there 2 sunken gardens in Hamilton then? I am a bit confused. I thought the sunken gardens were on the property where McMaster is situated. They were demolished to make way for development of the hospital and further parts of the campus?

Hi yes there were indeed two. What I just learned is that the one in front of McMaster was actually on Royal Botanical land that was sold to McMaster to build that monstrosity (although I guess it is doing it's job) called a children's hospital. Sometimes progress is not the best thing.

The one on York Blvd was built as part of a beautification project started by Thomas McQuestern who led the charge to beautify the western entrance to the city. Apparently it was truly ugly as there were shanties and gas stations and NO ROCK GARDEN AT ALL. If you look at the picture from the airplane you can see how truly ugly it was. Although the work had been started and the Sunken Garden was in place the sheer desolation of the area this side of the traffic circle has to make you admire the engineers who managd to link the two areas, Burlington and Hamilton.



Here is a pretty good website describing this.

http://www.hamiltonmagazine.com/sitepages/?aid=7968&cn=FEATURES&an=Royal%20Garden

Famed landscape architects Howard and Laurie Dunnington-Grubb were the husband-and-wife team behind the Sunken Gardens at the RBG. Built under McQuesten in 1929, the Sunken Gardens were demolished in 1968, amidst much controversy, to make way for expansion of the McMaster University grounds.

Cheers