AVOCA POOL

As seen in May, 2007

If we now follow the Yellow Creek a few steps further north, back to roughly the same latitude as the Crothers Woods ruins (adjusting for municipal alignment, as opposed to magnetic bearings), we will find yet another curiosity hidden in the shadow of the St. Clair Viaduct, just within striking distance of Mount Pleasant Cemetery. A few hundred yards south of the bridge, sunk into the western slope of the poetically named Vale of Avoca, is a lorn circular pool, approximately 5 feet in diameter, rimmed with moldering concrete stones and filled with the stagnant rains of unfathomed years.

Significantly distant from both the homes of the residential area above it, and the well-tread environs of Balfour Park and the creek below, the situation of this rather inaccessible pool seems especially puzzling, lacking any apparent connection to anything else. One is left to assume that it was once a destination in and of itself, as if some long forgotten woodland shrine. Here, we need only consider the various religious and cultic traditions that have, throughout the ages, made use of votive pools, wells, and fountains, to set the mind at turning.

Beyond such faint supposition, though, this artifact leaves scant traces to go on. At first glance, little seems to be gleaned from the immediate toponymy. "Balfour" is simply a Scottish habitational name meaning "farm house" or "house in a pasture," while "Avoca" finds its namesake in a river and the surrounding areas of County Wicklow, Ireland. The initial source of this name is somewhat obscure, being first recorded in Ptolemy's Geographia as "Oboka" (although this is likely a cartographic conflation with the River Liffey just to the north, having labelled the actual Avoca as "Modonnos"). As to the meaning of this name, Rev. P. Dempsey in his 1912 work Avoca: A History of the Vale, presents such options as "battle of rivers," "meeting of rivers," "crooked river," and "shaded or smothered river," with the only certain element of the name being the avo- prefix, most certainly from avon, the Irish term for a river of any sort.

Looking down from above, 2007

Leaving aside the name, however, we might point out that Wicklow, and the Avoca Valley specifically, are particularly rich in both historic and pre-historic ritual sites. Regarding the latter, one notes the numerous circular cairns and barrows which dot the region, such as the Ballygahan Upper "round barrow," and the "ring-barrow" at Killeagh Hill, both but a short hike from the town of Avoca itself. As to the former, one need look no further than the previously cited work of Reverend Dempsey and his chapter on "Ecclesiastical Ruins" — with perhaps an eye towards "Kilcashel, or the 'Church of the Fort,' or to be more precise, the 'Church of the Circular Stone Fort'" — located, intriguingly enough, at the triangular pinnacle between Ballygahan and Killeagh. Apart from the vale, we should also note that another of County Wicklow's most prominent topographic features is a conical, quartzite mountain known as the Great Sugar Loaf. Many Torontonians of a certain age will then recall that a certain Sugarloaf Hill once loomed over the mouth of the Yellow Creek before its removal in 1959 to make way for the Bayview Avenue Extension.

Looking now towards the viaduct, convention has it that "St. Clair" is a misspelling of the canonized Clare of Assisi, although several other saints have gone by the former spelling as well. In either case, both versions derive from the Latin clarus, meaning "clear," "bright," or in some instances "famous" — all terms one might theoretically associate with a sacred pool. Any further relation between Saint Clare and this particular pool may also lay in the fact that her holy emblem is a monstrance, while she is often depicted with, or represented by a pyx, or ciborium — all typically circular/rounded vessels used to contain the consecrated hosts of the Eucharist. Of additional note she is also, by some customs, the patron saint of clairvoyance and telepathy due to a miraculous vision she is said to have had of a Christmas mass which she was unable to personally attend because of illness. This, of course, naturally leads to thoughts of all the divining pools and otherwise oracular waters consulted throughout history for the purposes of hydromancy — thinking specifically here, perhaps, of the ancient Ionian oracle at Klaros, dedicated to that most "bright" solar god Apollo. We might, then, ask if this pool of Avoca could once have been intended for various evocative rites of mystical invocation?

One last note on the subject, inserted here to add perhaps nothing more than some further gothic tantalization: this pool lays squarely in the vicinity of what was once known as Gallows Hill, a landmark memorializing either the suicide of an early unidentified resident, or the execution ground of certain participants of the Upper Canada Rebellion, depending on which source you choose to believe.