History

Maps

Year	PDF	Image	Description
1800s	[size: 175 KB]		The asylum is later located on the area that is labelled on the map as “Broken Front.”
1888	[size: 223 KB]		By 1888, the Administration Building in the centre has been constructed, along with six cottages, all using unpaid patient labour. Three southern cottages house female patients, while the other three, north of the Administration Building, provide accommodation for male patients. Notice the physical isolation of the asylum in relation to the nearby community.
1892	[size: 264 KB]		Between 1888 and 1892, patients continue to expand the physical plant of the asylum, which now includes the Administration Building, five cottages for female patients, another five for male patients (the last one on each side is intended for the criminally insane patients, containing only single occupancy cells, both built in 1892), the Carriage House (1892), the cricket oval (1896), the Gatehouse (1893 or 1910), the Superintendent’s Residence (later known as the Cumberland House, 1896), the Assembly Hall (used for religious worship as well as entertainment, 1898), the Centre Building (multiple purposes, including carpentry shop, fire hall and staff bedrooms, the date of construction is unknown), and various storage facilities, located just west of the asylum.
1936	[size: 214 KB]		By 1936, all of the construction has been completed. It includes the erection of Lake House, which was erected in 1912 in order to provide on-site housing for staff, as well as the Power House (1930 or 1937), additional storage facilities, sewage disposal, and two separate pavilions for male and female patients, located near the shore. In 1903, the Government of Ontario acquired the 76-acre farm of H.J. McNeil, a provincial creditor, located on the lot just west of the asylum grounds. This land was to be cultivated by the patients as a form of therapy, and, therefore, they were uncompensated. In 1931, due to the severe overcrowding of the asylum, extensions are constructed on Cottages 1, 2 and A, B, joining them together. This map also provides a good outline of the underground tunnel network.
Mid-1970s	[size: 787 KB]		This is what the asylum looks like just a few years prior to the closing on September 1, 1979. Some structures have been changed purposes and have been subsequently renamed. The Superintendent’s Residence is now a school, attended by the patients from the Child and Adolescent Unit. The Nurses’ Residence has become the Humber Building, and the Moorhouse, a patient lounge, was opened April 20, 1968.
1978	[size: 155 KB]		The grounds of the asylum just a year before closing. Farming is discontinued in the 1950s and the former McNeil farm is later sold to the Teachers’ College.
Early 1990s	[size: 760 KB]		The grounds of the asylum in the early 1990s, most likely during the transfer of the land to Humber College, which constructed the present Lakeshore Campus. The former orchard, still surviving today, is visible in the southwest corner of Lakeshore Boulevard West and Kipling Avenue.
Google Maps: Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital	[n/a]	[n/a]	Consult the location and description of each building on the left side of the map.