JUBILEE ^{VICTORIA, BC}

On a map, the Jubilee neighbourhood resembles a large, inverted pork chop—very thin at the top and widening to the south. Historically it is an appropriate shape because pigs were raised there as early as the 1850s and during the late 1800s an abattoir was one of the area’s first businesses. The name derives from the Royal Jubilee Hospital which dominates the skyline from many parts of the area and in recent years has dictated traffic patterns around it. However, the term “Jubilee” really is a recent invention of convenience, coined to describe several disparate residential enclaves around the hospital which developed out of farms and private estates of the principal 19th-Century land owners—Pearse, Vye, Finnerty and Lee.

Jubilee Neighbourhood is relatively flat with arable soil, except for a low ridge of rock in the southwestern corner, on which the Pearse family built their home Fernwood in 1860 (demolished 1969). Bowker Creek crosses the neighbourhood from the northwest flowing to the southeast where it empties into the ocean south of Willows Beach. The creek and wells probably provided the water for the first farms in the area. In 1914 Bowker Creek flooded its banks and inundated what is now the intersection at Fort St. and Foul Bay Rd. Though portions of Bowker Creek are still exposed, the section through Jubilee flows in a covered culvert. In the late 1800s and early 1900s farming gradually gave way to housing, commercial and institutional uses. (source: http://www.victoriaheritagefoundation.ca/)

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