Uplands, Victoria (known locally as "the Uplands") is a

neighbourhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural a ...

located in the north east part of the District of

Oak Bay Oak Bay is a municipality incorporated in 1906 that is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is one of thirteen member municipalities of the Capital Regional District, and is bordered ...

, a suburb adjacent to

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Gre ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

, and situated between the neighbourhoods of Cadboro Bay and North Oak Bay. Uplands is a prominent example of a

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separ ...

designed in the early part of the 20th century. In 1907, the developers of Uplands, John A, Robert and Dawson Turner previously cattle and horse ranchers from Turner Valley Alberta and originally Scotland purchased the area for the sum of $275,000 and hired the leading

landscape architect A landscape architect is a person who is educated in the field of landscape architecture. The practice of landscape architecture includes: site analysis, site inventory, site planning, land planning, planting design, grading, storm water manage ...

John Olmsted as the designer. Olmsted designed famous neighbourhoods and parks in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

. The Uplands of today is faithful to Olmsted's vision: an elegant neighbourhood with estate-sized lots, serpentine streets and the signature green, globed, ornate

lamp post A street light, light pole, lamp pole, lamppost, street lamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or path. Similar lights may be found on a railway platform. When urban electric power distribution ...

s. The houses are built to impress and the sprawling gardens are carefully manicured. For John Olmsted personally, of all his subdivision projects, Uplands was “unquestionably the best adapted to obtain the greatest amount of landscape beauty in connection with suburban development.” Uplands has a seaside setting and has within its boundaries the large

Uplands Park Uplands Park is located within the municipality of Oak Bay, in the Uplands neighborhood, adjacent to the city of Victoria, British Columbia. Uplands Park consists of of woodland trails and undeveloped natural reserve land, and includes Cattle ...

. Uplands Park is not the manicured park of

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechanis ...

beds and walks that might be expected in such a meticulously designed garden suburb. Rather, it is a wild, seaside expanse of jagged rock crags,

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

s stunted and shaped by the wind, lonely

heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler a ...

s and dramatic ocean vistas. The wildness of Uplands Park contrasts sharply with the manicured

lawn A lawn is an area of soil-covered land planted with grasses and other durable plants such as clover which are maintained at a short height with a lawnmower (or sometimes grazing animals) and used for aesthetic and recreational purposes. ...

s and flower beds in front of the

mansion A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word ''mansio'' "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb ''manere'' "to dwell". The English word '' manse'' originally defined a property l ...

s that line Beach Drive, the main road through Uplands. In keeping with its seaside location, the Royal Victoria Yacht Club is located within the Uplands, and is the oldest

yacht club A yacht club is a sports club specifically related to yachting. Description Yacht clubs are mostly located by the sea, although there some that have been established at a lake or riverside locations. Yacht or sailing clubs have either a mar ...

in British Columbia.

National Historic Site Designation

On 19 August 2019, the minister responsible for Parks Canada announced that the Government of Canada had designate
Uplands (Oak Bay, BC)
as a National Historic Site. Parks Canada says that Uplands “is an exceptional example of subdivision design and planning”. John C. Olmsted's design is “among the finest works of a renowned landscape architect” which “changed the way suburbs were planned well into the 20th century.” It also notes that a number of the houses in Uplands were designed by Canada's and British Columbia's leading architects. Oak Bay council voted on 13 October 2020 to install at Midland Circle a commemorative plaque to be provided by Parks Canada, in recognition of Uplands as a National Historic Site.

Physical environment

The bedrock under Uplands is

quartz diorite Quartz diorite is an igneous, plutonic ( intrusive) rock, of felsic composition, with phaneritic texture. Feldspar is present as plagioclase (typically oligoclase or andesine) with 10% or less potassium feldspar. Quartz is present at between 5 an ...

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures a ...

. Soils are well drained sandy loams of the Cadboro and Langford series (Cd-L or Lsl), or poorly drained sandy clay loams of the Tolmie series (Tscl); all have thick dark topsoils. In near-shore areas the soils are more stony and are mapped as Langford-Rough Stony complex(L-Rs).http://sis.agr.gc.ca/cansis/publications/surveys/bc/bc6/index.html Soil Survey of Southeast Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, British Columbia. J.H. Day et al, 1959

References

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External links

The Corporation of the District of Oak BayRoyal Victoria Yacht ClubOak Bay News
Neighbourhoods in Oak Bay, British Columbia {{BritishColumbia-geo-stub