CHEDDAR

NAME: Cheddar COUNTY: Haliburton ROADS: 2WD GRID: 1 CLIMATE: Snow in winter BEST TIME TO VISIT: Spring to fall

COMMENTS: Nobody lives here as the village has been swallowed up by the forest. Take Hwy. 118 west from Tory Hill to Cheddar Rd and head south to the boarding house. REMAINS: Boarding house and a well

Cheddar is a ghost town extraordinaire. A trip to its present location will baffle the mind at its illustrious past. The ghost town has been literally reclaimed by the forest and only one building remains. Cheddar began in 1871 when Benjamin Woods opened a store and post office along the windy and new Burleigh Road (a colonization road). It was called Wood's Corners. Mr. Woods offered "entertainment to the travelling public". Soon after came the hotel, a blacksmith, sawmills, 2 churhces, a school and a second general store (owned by A. Southwood in 1890). Mr. Southwood got the new postmaster contract and instantly changed the name of the prospering settlement to Cheddar after a town in England. By the 20th century uranium was found nearby. The Cheddar Mine opened in 1932. By 1942 the mine was abandoned and soon the town began to fade in importance. In the winter months to keep active the local men formed a hockey team that would play local larger towns like Wilberforce. A fire tower was located south of Cheddar past the mine at Hook Mountain. Built in 1931, its towerman protected the local forests by an early detection of forest fire from the tower's cupola. The farm soils had become depleted by the 1950's. New roads were built and paved to welcome the new cottage boom in Haliburton. The old windy gravel trails that were the Burleigh and Monck Rds. were paved and straightened to bypass Cheddar. Suddenly the once strategic junction was left behind. The forest has reclaimed the entire town site and mine site. All that remains is the old boarding house, a cistern and fragments of the Cardiff fire tower. The village was located in the former Cardiff Township in what was once the northern part of Peterborough County. Today it is in Haliburton County on the Cheddar Rd just south of Highway 118. The old mine 1 km south of Cheddar is supposedly out of bounds but the old town site east of the boarding house through the forest might still contain some worthwhile photographs of sagging buildings. Submitted by: Clayton Self

Boarding House Courtesy Clayton Self

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