In 1910, Provincial Secretary William Hanna decided to reform the prison system by creating a program of humane treatment and useful work within extensive grounds and sympathetic architecture. He chose the rural countryside outside Guelph as the site for this new type of prison, where inmates could learn useful skills by working on the farm and in industrial shops. He wanted to reform them rather than punishing them as had been the case in the dreadful, dark conditions of the Central Prison in Toronto – a “penitentiary” where men were tortured, kept in silence in the dark, and fed rotted food and bad water.

Secretary Hanna purchased four farms and hired John Lyle, architect of the Royal Alexandra Theatre, and Union Station, to design the Administration Building. Lyle chose the Beaux Arts style with ornamental limestone carving and handmade oak interiors. The original cell blocks had three floors with 13 cells on each floor all open to allow fresh air and sunshine.

The cells and all other buildings were constructed by prisoners with limestone quarried from the jail property. One wing, the Ontario Hospital, housed the criminally insane and those with tuberculosis, while the other held the Reformatory cells for inmates serving less than two years for lighter crimes such as forgery, fighting or liquor offences. From 1917 – 1921, the Reformatory grounds, buildings, and workshops were modified to become the Speedwell Military Hospital that was used to house and train injured soldiers for their return to society.

The original 1000 acres were planned based on the principles of the City Beautiful movement with a grand entrance driveway leading to both working and ornamental spaces. The working sections included a large farm, an orchard of 1800 fruit trees, a greenhouse complex, a quarry, and several industries including a woollen mill, machine shop, tailor shop, creamery, lime kiln, broom shop, and its own spur line access to the CPR mainline.

The ornamental landscape comprised dry and field stone walls, ponds and watercourses, stairs, gates, bridges, and terraced gardens. The front section of the ornamental landscape was open to the public and gained a national reputation for its beauty.

In 1931, a Bull Gang dug out a swamp to create two beautiful ponds. During the Reformatory’s most productive years, the prisoners supplied beef, trout, textiles, wood and metal products, for the rest of Ontario’s prisons. At one time every provincial park in Ontario had cedar picnic tables constructed by the prisoners. They also worked in the community building bridges, trails, and stage sets, clearing lands for city parks, and repairing the carousel in Guelph’s Royal City Park.

By 1947, this was the largest prison in Canada with over 1000 inmates and 400 guards. From 1972 to its closing in 2002, the Reformatory became the Guelph Correctional Centre. Most of the farming areas were closed and about 700 acres of the original prison were sold off. From 2002 to the present, the buildings and grounds have been left vacant except for occasional use by the film industry and security training groups. The Ontario Government has announced that it will sold.

The City of Guelph has designated most of the buildings and some of the landscape features under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act, but a coalition of community groups, which includes ACO Guelph- Wellington, is seeking to have the whole site designated as a Heritage Conservation District. To create a self-sustaining Yorklands Green Hub, for education, demonstration, and research hub that will bring together businesses, organizations, and people of all ages and interests – to learn, work, share and innovate as stewards of our land, food, water, cultural heritage and our overall well-being. That study is now underway.