Strolling down Waddington Alley in Victoria, B.C., it’s easy to be distracted by looming red brick heritage buildings and the lush, inviting courtyard of Il Terrazzo Italian restaurant. Continue further and you'll notice the apartment building named after its original 1800’s commercial resident: Morley’s Soda Factory, who manufactured soda water, lemonade, and various fruit syrups used in medicines.
But unless one looks down, they’ll miss out on the most interesting and unique feature of the road, which is that it’s entirely paved with wooden bricks! But despite being one of a handful Victorian roads paved with wooden brick during the early 1900s, Waddington Alley is the only one left. So what’s the history behind this unique road? I’m so glad you asked!
The original proprietor, Alfred Waddington, arrived from England in 1858, and purchased two city blocks between lower Yates and Johnson Streets for commercial use. Once developed, his buildings quickly filled up with a diverse collection of enterprises that included a bakery, a billiards hall, a bowling alley and a soda factory. After naming the alley diving the two blocks after himself, Waddington Alley was born.
At the time, incessant rain turned most of Victoria's dirt streets into muddy and problematic potholed-filled messes; and Waddington Alley was no exception. Despite this, Mr. Waddington refused to pave it, covering the problem areas with sheets of iron instead. It wasn’t until after his death in 1872 that city government was forced to intervene and provide a better solution; albeit one that still took forty years to implement!
In the early 1900’s, creosote-soaked wooden brick roads were used to pave many roads in Pacific Northwest cities, including Seattle. They were cheap to build, provided an easy path for cart movement, and reduced the noisy clip-clop of horse hooves by ten-fold. Victoria city took note of these benefits, and began paving select local roads (including Trounce Alley, Broad St., Langley St., and parts of Wharf St.) with the same wooden bricks used in Seattle. By 1908, Waddington Alley joined them.
However, wooden brick streets turned out not to be an ideal solution; they wore down easily, and bricks frequently needed to be repaired or replaced, not to mention that being highly flammable is why Seattles wooden streets all burned in the great fire of 1889. As such, Victoria's wood brick streets soon gave way to the more superior asphalt paved streets, one at a time, until Waddington Alley was the only wooden brick road left in Victoria.
By the early 1980s, Waddington Alley was in total disrepair and also faced being replaced by asphalt; however a city councillor named Geoff Young passionately advocated for making the alleyway a municipal heritage site, eventually winning his case. Because of his efforts, these days Waddington Alley is now a protected site and available for all to enjoy.
So next time you wander through Victoria’s Old Town, take a moment to stroll down Waddington Alley. Keep an eye out for the converted apartment block that is named after its most famous tenant, The Morley’s Soda Factory, or other traces of it’s historical past.
Better still, why not join one of our HIDDEN VICTORIA tours that weave through all parts of old town including Waddington Alley? Our professional guides will share the history, the stories and the folklore that make Victoria such a special place.
For more information or to book one of our tours, click HERE.