Guild Inn, Art colony building in Scarborough, Canada
The Guild Inn is a building in Scarborough, Ontario, situated on 88 acres of parkland on the Scarborough Bluffs, featuring gardens, woodlands, and architectural fragments from Toronto's past. The grounds contain event spaces, walking trails, and viewing points that overlook Lake Ontario.
In 1914 Colonel Harold Bickford built a 33-room Arts and Crafts manor, Bickford House, on 40 acres called Ranelagh Park. The Roman Catholic Foreign Mission Society bought it in 1921 as China Mission College, and Richard Veech Look owned it from 1923 to 1927. Rosa Breithaupt Hewetson, who bought the vacant estate in 1932 and married Herbert Spencer Clark there that August, turned it into an artists' colony modelled on Roycroft in East Aurora, New York.
The Guild's gardens hold pieces of more than 60 demolished structures, among them the Toronto Bank Building, the old Toronto Star building, the Granite Club and the home of Sir Frederick Banting, plus 14 works by sculptor Sorel Etrog. The Clarks began collecting these fragments as follies; today they stand among the trees as an outdoor collection of the city's lost architecture.
Guild Park and Gardens stays open to the public while the Inn building serves as an events facility. The grounds sit on the Scarborough Bluffs, where the cliff edge drops toward Lake Ontario, so stay back from the rim and keep to marked paths. The site is reached from Kingston Road via Guildwood Parkway.
During World War II the grounds served as a base for the Women's Royal Naval Service and later housed a hospital for military personnel. This lesser-known wartime history adds another layer of significance to the estate that many visitors overlook.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 93,646 contributors worldwide.