​Rural structures nearly forgotten

How the rural landscape has changed since our great-grandparents arrived here in the middle of the 19th Century! The buildings of those days became sheds or hen-houses as the need for larger barns grew as a result of increased acreage and livestock numbers.

The big brick or stone houses built in the later 1800s to accommodate large families, when the shanties and log cabins were outgrown, are being replaced with “modern” styles sized for fewer occupants. Computerized milking and feeding establishments or long sheds storing huge machinery, have taken the place of the bank barns.

The barn on Lot 5, Concession 3, SDR, that Grandpa built and Daddy remodelled many times with great care, disappeared quite some years ago. I really wouldn’t recognize the house in its present state.

Another structure long gone is the cement bridge we crossed whenever we went to town. Although I don’t know when it was built, I am sure it was in the days of the horse and buggy. It was an arch, a humpback construction, sitting on huge cement abutments over the Penetangore River which could be a raging torrent or a sleepy trickle, depending on the season. Its thick walls with a wide overhanging ledge showed the speckled gravel of early cement.

And why was it so memorable? One reason was the opportunity for a “roller-coaster” feeling if the driver of the car dared to keep up enough speed going over.

But the main reason was because the bridge did not sit square to the road. Was it because there had been a “bump” in the surveyor’s line that the road did not cross the river at a 90-degree angle? Or did the township councillors attempt to spend funds on the shortest possible bridge?

At any rate when the Buttery or Stewart horse and buggy drove over, there was no problem. But as cars became faster and longer, they met a challenge - steering wheel to the left, up and over, steering wheel to the right then straight and up the hill.

You can definitely see the angle in this clipping but the arch was long gone. Does anyone have an older picture?



I remember that the door handle on the passenger side of our 1955 coral-and-beige Plymouth was slightly crumpled because Mum was in a little too much of a hurry to get to an errand in town one day and the corner of the bridge got in her way.

I’m sure Daddy always had to plan an alternate route when he needed to take the combine in that direction.

Gail remembers that someone got lodged sideways between the walls, whether because of speed or winter ice, she doesn’t know.

Now when I drive over the long, straight, modern bridge, I feel quite nostalgic.

Ruth Anne Hollands Robinson
March, 2020