Unspecified/General

Dorchester Square is a large public park at the centre of downtown Montreal, a green and leafy space ringed by historic and modern buildings that serves as a gathering place, a starting point for city tours and a quiet refuge amid the surrounding bustle. The square occupies ground that was once a Catholic cemetery, used in the first half of the nineteenth century and including victims of cholera epidemics, before the burials were relocated and the land was laid out as a public square in the latter part of the century, a history that lends the pleasant park an unexpected solemnity beneath its lawns and paths. Around its edges stand landmarks that chart the growth of the city, among them grand old buildings, churches and early skyscrapers, while just to the south, across a busy boulevard, lies the related Place du Canada with its war memorials and the cathedral built as a smaller version of St Peter's in Rome. The square is dotted with monuments and statues commemorating figures from the country's history, set among mature trees, flower beds and benches, and it has long been a place where office workers pause at midday, where festivals and events spill out, and where the horse-drawn carriages and tour buses that show visitors the city traditionally begin their routes. Renovated in recent years to refresh its paths, plantings and monuments, Dorchester Square remains a focal point of the downtown core, combining the role of an everyday urban park with that of a memorial space and a window onto the layered history of Montreal. The square's position at the heart of the downtown core makes it a natural orientation point and a meeting place, a patch of green and open sky surrounded by the dense fabric of the modern city. Its origins as a burial ground lend the cheerful park a poignant undercurrent, for thousands were interred here in the cholera years before the cemetery was closed and the remains moved, and the square was reimagined as a public space in the Victorian era. The buildings that frame it tell the story of the city's growth, from ornate stone edifices of the nineteenth century to some of the earliest tall office buildings in the country and the glass towers of later decades, while the nearby cathedral of Mary Queen of the World, built as a scaled-down echo of St Peter's in Rome, anchors the adjoining Place du Canada with its war memorials. Scattered across the square stand statues and monuments to figures from the nation's past, set among lawns and mature trees, and long the traditional starting point for the sightseeing tours that introduce visitors to the city, the recently renewed square remains a much-loved focal point of central Montreal.

Type: Outdoors

Address: Montreal, Canada