Little Britain is a community in the City of Kawartha Lakes

Kawartha Lakes

The city of Kawartha Lakes is a unitary municipality in Central Ontario, Canada. Although called a city, Kawartha Lakes is the size of a typical Ontarian county and is mostly rural....

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It is located 15 km southwest of Lindsay

Lindsay, Ontario

Lindsay is a community of 19,361 people on the Scugog River in the Kawartha Lakes region of south-eastern Ontario, Canada. It is approximately west of Peterborough...

. Formerly a part of Mariposa Township and Victoria County

Victoria County, Ontario

The County of Victoria, or Victoria County, was a county in the Canadian province of Ontario. It was formed in 1854 as The United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria, and gained independence in 1863. In 2001, the county was dissolved and reformed as the city of Kawartha Lakes...

, Little Britain is now part of Ward 8, City of Kawartha Lakes.

History

Little Britain was established in 1834 by a man named Harrison Haight. He built the first mill in Little Britain in 1837. This mill, which stood until 1910, took nearly the whole countryside to build. At the time, there was no road that led from Little Britain to Oakwood, located 5 km to the north. In 1850 Christians came and built the first church. They were followed by the Bible Church in 1852. The Post Office came in 1853.

Prominent members of the time included Joseph Maunder's carriage and blacksmithing works, W.M Burden's carriage shop, Edwin Mark's foundry, Isaac Finley's steam roller flour mill, Dr George Wesley Hall MD and the Davidson's flour mill. The railway was brought into Lindsay around the turn of the century. This however, did little to advance Little Britain's economic output. In fact the population of Mariposa Township declined sharply between 1871-1920 from 3,132 to 2,231.

Today

Little Britain today is still a primarily agricultural town. It also has a fairly significant tourist presence from the influx of cottagers on nearby Lake Scugog, and from those who use Little Britain Road as a means to bypass heavy cottager summer traffic on Highway 4. For such a small town, Little Britain boasts a number of comfortable amenities including a restaurant, bakery, bank, library, grocery store, post office, park, arena, and a hair salon as well as many other services.