Scotsdale Farm
At Scotsdale Farm, you’ll have lots of room to hike, enjoy a relaxing picnic or just get away from it all.
Street address:
13807 Trafalgar Road
Halton Hills, Ontario
Hours:
Dawn to dusk
This site is owned by the Ontario Heritage Trust but is operated by tenants and partners.
Kid friendly
Parking
Partial wheelchair access
Self-guided tours available
Site is protected by the Ontario Heritage Trust
Photography allowedScotsdale presents visitors with 215 hectares (531 acres) of pastoral countryside. Superb hiking trails run through the farm’s rolling hills and woodlands. Part of the Niagara Escarpment, the Bruce Trail and the Bennett Heritage Trail cross the property, offering hikers hours of scenic enjoyment. Visitors can also enjoy strolling around Scotsdale’s historical farm buildings, which make for beautiful backdrops in every season.
Things you need to know
Scotsdale Farm is free to visit, and open from dawn to dusk. There are no public washrooms available for visitors.
Parking anywhere outside of designated parking lots is not permitted and cars may be towed.
Drones are not permitted at Scotsdale Farm.
Hiking and walking
About 3.5 km (2.2 miles) of the Bruce Trail passes through Scotsdale Farm, along with the Bennett Heritage Trail (3 km/1.9 miles). The trails wind through forests, along farm fields and over creeks. Interpretive signs have been installed throughout the trails and share more information about the farm, its history and the local ecosystem. Please stay on the trails at all times.
Film and photography
Visitors are welcome to take photos and videos at Scotsdale Farm provided that they respect the historical buildings and natural environment. Visitors who cause damage or interfere with others’ enjoyment of the site may be asked to leave.
The Trust works with many different organizations to maintain Scotsdale Farm:
History
An Indigenous presence at Scotsdale Farm can be dated to around 1500 CE, with the establishment of an Iroquoian village at the east of the property. Today, Scotsdale is within the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit and is part of Treaty 19.
In 1836, Christopher Cook, an Irish immigrant, established a farm on this site. His family and their descendants lived there for over a century before selling the farm and 80 hectares (200 acres) to Stewart and Violet (Letty) Bennett in 1938.
The Bennetts were well known and wealthy agriculturalists. They worked with architects to transform the property into a pastoral landscape. They redeveloped the existing farmhouse and barn from the Cook homestead, and added most of the other buildings on the property between 1940 and 1960. The Bennetts bred Arabian horses and shorthorn cattle. Their cattle won championships and prizes both locally and internationally.
In 1982, the Bennetts donated Scotsdale Farm — at that time about 215 hectares (531 acres) — to the Ontario Heritage Trust. Today, Scotsdale is a destination for hiking, walking and photography.
Heritage significance
Scotsdale Farm is part of the Niagara Escarpment, a World Biosphere Reserve. It is home to two environmentally sensitive areas and its wetlands, stream system and forests play important and essential roles in the local ecosystem. The site is home to many rare plants, a variety of fish, and grassland birds like the Eastern Bobolink.
The pastoral design of the farm and its buildings is an example of a gentleman farmer’s estate, with elements of a working farm — such as cattle and horse barns — retained amid a cultivated and curated landscape. The farm is associated with the Bennetts, who transformed the space into an internationally renowned breeding farm for shorthorn beef cattle.