The Cathedral of the Transfiguration: Byzantine Grandeur on the Horizon
Stand on Highway 404 east of Markham and look west. The sight that stops you is the Cathedral of the Transfiguration at 10350 Woodbine Ave—a massive Byzantine Revival structure that rises above the city with an architectural authority few buildings possess. The cathedral's most distinctive feature is the world's largest three-bell carillon, a distinction that makes this a singular acoustic landmark in North America. After decades of incompletion, the building found new life in 2017 when a Slovak Greek Catholic congregation began services here. The cathedral rewards a visit not just for its architectural ambition but for the way it commands the landscape, visible from considerable distances and impossible to ignore once you know it's there.
Walking Through Heritage Neighbourhoods: Unionville's Nineteenth-Century Streets
Main Street Unionville preserves an entire village as it developed in the 1840s, now designated a heritage conservation district within the city of Markham. The street splits into two distinct characters: south of the railway grade crossing, elegant nineteenth-century houses line the street as private residences; north of the crossing, the same period buildings now house restaurants, pubs, and small businesses, creating a walkable quarter where history and contemporary life coexist.
- Begin at the Stiver House (206 Main St Unionville), built around 1829—the oldest known building in Unionville—and move north through the commercial heritage district.
- Visit the McKay Art Centre (197 Main St Unionville), housed in the Eckhardt-McKay House built between 1845 and 1851. This is where Group of Seven artist F.H. Varley once lived. The gallery shows work by local artists alongside period furnishings in a few rooms, and admission is free.
- Walk to the Varley Art Gallery of Markham (216 Main St Unionville) for a small but focused collection of artworks including pieces by Varley himself.
- Stop at the Queen's Hotel (174 Main St Unionville), a distinctive 1871 structure that arrived with the railway, and the Unionville Planing Mill (139 Main St Unionville), now housing a restaurant and shops, with an old water wheel at its northeast corner.
- Explore Station Lane, where the former Unionville railway station (built 1871, last trains 1991) and the Stiver Mill now serve community functions. The station and mill represent Unionville's connection to the Toronto and Nipissing Railway that shaped the village's growth.
The Markham Museum: Thirty Buildings of Rural Life
At 9350 Markham Rd (Highway 48), the Markham Museum sits on 25 acres as an open-air collection of nearly thirty buildings from the area's past. This is not a single grand structure but a village of structures: houses, barns, sheds, a train station, a school, a general store, a church, a blacksmith shop, a harness shop, a saw mill, and a cider mill. Walking the grounds, you move through layers of daily life as it was lived in rural Markham before urbanization. Summer hours are Monday to Friday 10am–5pm, and Saturday–Sunday noon–5pm, closed on statuary holidays.
Main Street Markham and Thornhill: Architecture Across Two Centuries
Two smaller heritage districts offer concentrated explorations of Markham's built history. Main Street Markham (also called Markham Village) extends 2 km from Highway 7 north to 16th Avenue, with its most intact nineteenth-century retail section at the south end. Walk past the James Speight house (48 Main Street North), nicknamed the "Wedding Cake House" for its ornate decorative woodwork, built around 1870; the Former John Wilson store (80 Main St N), a false-front structure from 1864; and The Old Town Hall (96 Main Street North), built in 1882 with a village council chamber above a jail. The station for GO Transit (214 Main Street North) occupies the former Toronto and Nipissing Railway Company station from 1871, where you can still see an old-fashioned stove through the windows of the waiting room.
Thornhill's heritage district clusters over a dozen nineteenth-century structures, particularly along Colborne Street, where white picket fences frame the front yards of period houses. The Thornhill Village Library (10 Colborne Street) occupies the Ellen Ramsden House, built in 1851, with an outdoor garden, and operates Tuesday–Thursday noon–8pm, Wednesday and Saturday 9am–5pm, Friday 9am–6pm, and Sunday 1–5pm (closed Mondays).
A Pond and Park for Rest
After walking heritage streets, Toogood Pond (216 Main St Unionville) offers large open spaces for movement and rest, with areas for fishing and room to breathe.
Markham rewards visitors who slow down enough to notice the layers of settlement beneath the contemporary city. Begin planning a visit around the heritage neighbourhoods and the museum, and let the architectural story of rural Ontario unfold beneath your feet.