Preston's Riverside Park Summer Roundabout, Cambridge ON Canada

Italian composer Luca Fraula’s wistful composition accompan ies this colourful midsummer walk through Preston’s Riverside Park. This slideshow pr esents views of the park, Speed River millpond, dam and the nature interpretive boardwalk, photographed with Holga plastic lenses. Cambridge's largest park (102 ha, 256 acres), Riverside is situated beside a millpond on the Speed River, one km from its confluence with the historic Grand River. The park’s origins date to the 1888 sale, by William C. Schlueter (1830-1896), of 13 hectares (32 ac) of land to the Preston Riding & Driving Association. Mr. Schlueter, a Preston merchant, also served as Preston’s reeve and Waterloo County warden. The Association sold the land to the town of Preston as the site for the Speed (later, Riverside) Park. The 1879 Riverside (aka King Street)dam once supplied water power for John Erb’s 1807 Cambridge Mills (later, Samuel Cherry’s Flour Mill, P&H Milling). Samuel Cherry (1843-1917) likely constructed two control towers circa 1890 (only the north tower remains). With a length of 67 m (220 ft) and 1.5 m high, it has been the subject of vigorous community discussions since a 2012 engineering study found it in danger of imminent collapse, thereby posing a risk to the adjacent circa 1910 railway tracks and the 1987 King Street bridge. The millrace was disconnected in 2016 when its slue gates were filled with concrete. In 2023, Cambridge city council voted to rebuild the dam beginning in 2025, at an estimated cost of $19.3 million. Jacob H. Mickler (1857-1944) designed the front entrance gates in 1921 as a memorial for Preston’s WW1 fallen soldiers. A City of Cambridge heritage landmark states: “The Riverside Park Entrance Gates and Walls were originally designed in November 1919 by J. Paterson, in association with local architect J. H. Mickler, as an elegant memorial to the local men who had died during world War 1. The gates and walls were redesigned by Mr. Paterson and Mr. Mickler on a more modest scale in early 1921 and were erected later that year.” The circa 1921 grandstand, a major park feature, received roof repairs in 2018 and temporarily closed in 2020 for rehabilitation due to its deterioration. Located at Preston's (Cambridge) Riverside Park upstream from the millpond, the 2 km Charles J. Whitney Nature Interpretation Trail begins near at the 61 m (200 ft) Russ Street pedestrian bridge and crosses marshy wetlands and riverine woodlands along the Speed River stretching upstream toward Hespeler Road. It features a 250 m boardwalk and scenic river panoramas. Constructed circa 1982 and completely rebuilt 2010-2012, the accessible boardwalk provides close-up access to pond and marsh flora and fauna. A Rotarian’ plaque at the boardwalk entrance states: ‘A facility specially designed to accommodate the handicapped. This trail constructed with funds provided by the Preston – Hespeler Rotary Club, in memory of Charles Whitney, Rotarian, 1982.” For more park history, see rych mills' “Preston’s Riverside Park has a storied past and promising future” (Waterloo Region Record, March 26, 2021), and “Cultural Heritage Evaluation Report: Riverside Dam, Speed River, Preston” (Unterman McPhail Associates, 2013).

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