Built in 1870 at no. 48 Main Street North.
"The Wedding Cake House is located at 48 Main Street North, on the west side of Main Street North, west of Centre Street in the Town of Markham. The two storey board and batten house was constructed in 1870.
The property was designated by the Town of Markham in 1979 for its heritage value under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act (By-law 209-79).
The Wedding Cake House is associated with James Speight, the first Reeve of the former Village Markham. Speight operated a wagon workshop, planning mill and sash and door shop that were established as early as the 1830s.
The Wedding Cake House is a good representation of the Vernacular architectural style, sharing many features with Gothic Revival design. This is evident by its peaked central gable, veranda with bargeboard, irregular style and central facade entrance with sidelights and transom. The residence gets its name from its six different types of bargeboard all of which were created in James Speight's planning mill. The second storey windows are also decorated with a “popcorn” styled wood trim. The integrity of the house has been maintained both outside and in; there are three foot high baseboards surrounding the rooms and a beautiful curved staircase. The Wedding Cake House has been restored, and is now known as the Artisan Pub House." - info from Historic Places.
"Markham (/ˈmɑːrkəm/) is a city in York Region, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately 30 km (19 mi) northeast of Downtown Toronto. In the 2021 Census, Markham had a population of 338,503, which ranked it the largest in York Region, fourth largest in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and 16th largest in Canada.
The city gained its name from the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe (in office 1791–1796), who named the area after his friend, William Markham, the Archbishop of York from 1776 to 1807.
Indigenous people lived in the area of present-day Markham for thousands of years before Europeans arrived in the area. The first European settlement in Markham occurred when William Berczy, a German artist and developer, led a group of approximately sixty-four German families to North America. While they planned to settle in New York, disputes over finances and land tenure led Berczy to negotiate with Simcoe for 26,000 ha (64,000 acres) in what would later become Markham Township in 1794. Since the 1970s, Markham rapidly shifted from being an agricultural community to an industrialized municipality due to urban sprawl from neighbouring Toronto. Markham changed its status from town to city on July 1, 2012.
As of 2013, tertiary industry mainly drives Markham. As of 2010, "business services" employed the largest proportion of workers in Markham – nearly 22% of its labour force. The city also has over 1,000 technology and life-sciences companies, with IBM as the city's largest employer. Several multinational companies have their Canadian headquarters in Markham, including: Honda Canada, Hyundai, Advanced Micro Devices, Johnson & Johnson, General Motors, Avaya, IBM, Motorola, Oracle, Toshiba, Toyota Financial Services, Huawei, Honeywell, General Electric and Scholastic Canada." - info from Wikipedia.
Late June to early July, 2024 I did my 4th major cycling tour. I cycled from Ottawa to London, Ontario on a convoluted route that passed by Niagara Falls. during this journey I cycled 1,876.26 km and took 21,413 photos. As with my other tours a major focus was old architecture.
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