Mutchmor Trotting Park and Turf Hotel
(Bordered by Bronson Avenue & Bank Street and Glebe & Fifth Avenue)
Written by Bytown Museum
on
03/Dec/2009
Opened in 1871, the Mutchmor Trotting Park and Turf Hotel were owned by Ralph Mutchmor and E.C. Barber. The pair rented 48 acres from St. Andrew's Glebe to start the trotting park. It was here that the Queen's Plate, Canada's most prestigious horse race, was held in 1872 and 1880. Mutchmor Park also drew the carriage crowd out from the city for Sunday drives and the Turf Hotel served the many racing patrons. Mutchmor Park was in use until the late 1880s.
The Mutchmor family owned a large farm just south of St. Andrew's Glebe. It stretched from Fifth Avenue south to Broadway and extended east from Bronson Avenue across the Rideau Canal to Main Street. The Mutchmors began to subdivide and sell their farm for housing in the 1880s.
The Mutchmor name is recognized in the Glebe today as that of the local public school on Fifth Avenue. Construction of Mutchmor PS began in 1895. Up until 1909, Fifth Avenue was known as Mutchmor Street, and the school, like many others, was named after the street on which it was located.
