Cedar Hedge Farm

Cedar Hedge Farm is an old farm property in Milton that has recently been purchased for development of new homes.

This property was originally acquired from the crown in 1831 by Thomas Appleton. Thomas Patterson, an Irish immigrant whose wife passed away during the long voyage from Ireland, purchased & settled it in 1840 with his 3 children and brother. it remained in his family for the next 172 years. His grandson, Cecil Clarence Patterson died on October 14, 1971 & his wife Mary Eleanor (Ella) Patterson, who was born in 1910, became the owner (Her parents previously owned the Peacock property south of Derry Road from 4th line to 5th line). Ella as a writer in the local Canadian Champion newspaper wrote about the history & destruction of the Dixon family's old Sprucedale farm Heritage Home in 1991. She lived into her 100th year & passed away on January 2nd 2010. The estate passed the property on to her kids, Cecil Patterson and Joanne Bauman in 2012 who sold it for multiple millions to a developer to a developer. Mattamy is planning to build a new subdivision, creating a total of 29 residential blocks yielding a total of 436 residential homes.

The property had a number of buildings, but the 2 that were of any historical value was the home & barn, which was built in 1902. Heritage Milton considered that the property was of heritage significance and wanted the house retained or possibly relocated as part of the future subdivision. Mattamy was willing to accommodate, but Cecil Patterson addressed the Milton Heritage Committee with respect to the families long history in Milton. He also advised them that he only sold the land but had retained ownership of the buildings & that he wanted to dismantle the house and salvage components (bricks, doors, windows, floor boards, trim staircase etc) for his new home in Nassagaweya.

On August 30th, 2012, although regretting the future loss of the buildings, Heritage Milton approved the dismantling & demolition of the house. They also requested that if the house is dismantled, elements from it that are not needed by the Patterson family, are to be used as part of a memorial structure to commemorate the history of Cedar Hedge Farm.

I know the barn was already demolished this past fall, but I was hoping the house would still be in tact. I knew there was a lot of paperwork to still be processed and didn't expect to see much done with the property until the spring or summer. Although Mattamy is still preparing things I was disappointed to see that it looks like Cecil Patterson has completed his task. The barn is virtually gone & the home has been stripped of most of it's usable material. Although it's still interesting to see the home in it's present condition, I was hoping to see it closer to it's original glory. I do commend Mr. Patterson for re-using so much of his historic home, I would like to see his new home when finished.

There is still a less attractive, more recently built, small house on the property, it was locked & it did not appear to have much within. There was also a steel barn/shed, that was strewn with garbage & locked, but could have been accessed rather easily. There was also a garbage dumpster that appeared to have some old household items and garbage. I decided to skip these places because I still had a significant amount to explore.