Stanley Barracks

New Fort York
at the mouth of Garrison Creek, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The Officers' Mess, the only surviving building of New Fort York
Type	military base for the settlement
Site history
Built	1840
Materials	Queenston limestone

New Fort York was built to replace Toronto's original Fort York at the mouth of Garrison Creek as the primary military base for the settlement. Unlike the older fort, it was made with limestone instead of wood. And it did not have a wall as protection (which was planned but never built).

A series of six stone buildings were constructed in what is now the Canadian National Exhibition grounds around 1840 by the Royal Engineers of the British Army with the biggest building being the Officers' Quarters. The two storey Queenston limestone structure cost 19,000 pounds and housed troops following the 1837 Rebellion.

Other features of the fort included:

British troops left the fort in 1870.

Troops stationed at the fort over the years:

The North-West Mounted Police also used the facility for training in the 1870s.

New Fort York was renamed to Stanley Barracks in 1893 after the Governor General of Canada at that time, Lord Stanley of Preston (of hockey's Stanley Cup fame).

During World War I, the barracks housed German, Austro-Hungarian, and Turkish citizens, who were interned there as enemy aliens. The barracks were last used during World War II when the Canadian troops were stationed there prior to being sent overseas. All the fort's buildings and other exhibition building housed the troops.

After the war, most of the buildings became vacant. The Stanley Barracks were mostly demolished in 1953. The gates to the barracks (gate doors forged in England in 1839) were salvaged in 1957, however, and were re-erected in Toronto on Kingston Rd. at Guildwood Parkway, at the entrance to Guildwood Village, by the owners of the Guild Inn. where they may still be viewed. Lights replaced the stone globes on the top of the gate posts. The Officers' Mess building can still be found on the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition, but it is now vacant.