Live in The Glebe
Bank Street between the Queensway and the canal — the inner-city neighbourhood that kept its high street, its detached houses and its independent shops, and pays for all three.
The Glebe is church land. In the 1837 survey of Ottawa the Crown deeded 178 acres to St Andrew's Presbyterian Church as a clergy reserve — a glebe is a parcel held to support a parish — and when it opened for development in 1870 the estate agents simply kept the name. What went up on it, mostly between 1890 and 1914, is the thing that makes the neighbourhood unusual: a full grid of detached and semi-detached houses on real lots, a kilometre from downtown, with a continuous commercial high street running through the middle of it. The electric streetcar down Bank Street in 1891 is why the shops are there; the Exhibition grounds at Lansdowne, bought from local farmers in 1868, are why the stadium is. Today the Glebe is one of the most expensive addresses in Ottawa and one of the few where families with children and independent retail survive in the same postcode. It is also a neighbourhood with a stadium and a construction site in the middle of it, and a canal on two sides that turns into a skating rink. This is what living here is actually like.
Church land, then a streetcar suburb, then the last inner-city high street standing
Bounded by the Queensway to the north, the Rideau Canal to the east and south, and LeBreton Street South, Carling Avenue and Dow's Lake to the west. The area includes the Glebe Annex west of Bronson and the Dow's Lake neighbourhood in the northwest corner — the Ottawa Neighbourhood Study maps the whole thing as Glebe – Dows Lake.
The neighbourhood is named after what it was: 178 acres of clergy reserve deeded by the Crown to St Andrew's Presbyterian Church in the 1837 survey. A glebe is land held to support a parish, and when it opened for development in 1870 the estate agents simply shortened the phrase. What went up on it, mostly between 1890 and 1914, is unusual for a neighbourhood a kilometre from a Canadian downtown: a full grid of detached and semi-detached houses on real lots, with a continuous commercial street through the middle.
The streetcar built it. Annexation pushed the city limits to the canal in 1889, and in June 1891 the first electric streetcar ran down Bank Street to the Exhibition at Lansdowne. That is the whole explanation for the neighbourhood's shape — shops on Bank, houses on the numbered avenues either side, and the best of them on Clemow and Monkland, laid out in the 1900s and filled with houses by W. E. Noffke and David Younghusband. The streetcars came up in 1959 and the Queensway went in along the northern edge, but Bank Street survived as a high street, largely because the buildings on it were never big enough to be worth knocking down.
What is inside the walk. A real high street — independent shops, a proper bookshop, groceries, restaurants — which almost nowhere else in inner Ottawa still has. Lansdowne Park with TD Place, the Redblacks, the 67's and the Sunday farmers' market. The Rideau Canal on two sides, which is a skating rink from January and a boat channel from May. Dow's Lake and Commissioners Park at the northwest corner, where the Canadian Tulip Festival plants the largest beds in the region. And Patterson Creek and Brown's Inlet, two fingers of canal water surrounded by the most expensive houses in the neighbourhood.
The honest version. This is one of Ottawa's most expensive addresses and the premium is for the location and the street, not the house — most of the stock is pre-1914, which means knob-and-tube, stone or rubble foundations, and a driveway about one and a half cars wide if it has one at all. Living beside a stadium has a schedule: Redblacks games, 67's games and concerts all come with traffic and residential parking permits. And Lansdowne 2.0 — a $418.8-million replacement event centre and north-side stands, approved by Council 15–10 and under construction since December 2025 — will be a building site through the middle of the neighbourhood until roughly 2027, with structural work starting in the third quarter of 2026.
- Most houses predate 1914 — budget for wiring, foundations and the fact that the third floor was never insulated
- Lansdowne 2.0 is a live construction site until roughly 2027; check what your street looks like on a game day and on a work day
- Residential parking permits matter here more than almost anywhere else in the city
- The canal is the eastern and southern boundary — a skateway in winter, a pathway commute in summer, and no crossing except at the bridges
- Bank Street's independent retail is the reason people pay the premium, and it is not guaranteed to survive the next decade
- There is no rapid transit inside the neighbourhood; Bank Street buses and the canal path do the work, and Bayview and Carleton stations are the nearest rail
How the Glebe got here
- 1837The Crown's survey of Ottawa sets aside 178 acres as a clergy reserve for St Andrew's Presbyterian Church. The name sticks: a glebe is land held to support a parish, and when the estate agents open it for development in 1870 they simply shorten it.
- 1868The City of Ottawa Agricultural Society buys farmland beside the canal for an exhibition ground. Twenty years later the Exhibition opens on it, and the site has been Lansdowne Park ever since.
- 1889–1891Annexation extends the city limits from Gladstone Avenue south to the Rideau Canal. In June 1891 the first electric streetcar runs down Bank Street to the Exhibition, and the neighbourhood's shape is settled: shops on Bank, houses on the avenues either side.
- 1898–1920The institutions arrive. First Avenue Public School and St Matthew's Anglican open in 1898, Mutchmor on Fifth Avenue in the 1890s with additions in 1911 and 1920. Clemow and Monkland avenues are laid out, and W. E. Noffke and David Younghusband design a run of houses on them that are still the neighbourhood's best.
- 1900–1903The Driveway is built from Elgin Street to the Experimental Farm, giving the Glebe its eastern promenade and, eventually, the Queen Elizabeth Driveway pathway that runs beside the canal.
- 1959–1966The streetcars come up and the Queensway goes in along the northern edge, cutting the neighbourhood off from Centretown except at the bridges. Bank Street survives as a high street largely because the buildings on it were never big enough to be worth demolishing.
- 1992–1995The Ottawa Senators play their first three NHL seasons at the Civic Centre under the Lansdowne stands, before the Palladium opens in Kanata. The Ottawa 67's have been in the same arena since 1967.
- 2014The first Lansdowne redevelopment opens: a new stadium, a retail block, condominiums and Aberdeen Square. The Redblacks begin play, and the Sunday farmers' market moves into the horticulture building.
- 2023–2026Council approves Lansdowne 2.0 by a 15–10 vote — a $418.8-million replacement event centre and new north-side stands. Site works begin in December 2025; by mid-February 2026 about 33,000 cubic metres of soil have come out, and above-ground structural work is due to start in the third quarter of 2026.
Water on two sides and a research farm on the third
The Glebe is bounded by water on two sides and by a farm on most of a third. The Rideau Canal runs along the east and south with the Queen Elizabeth Driveway pathway beside it; Dow's Lake and Commissioners Park fill the northwest corner; and across Bronson lies the Central Experimental Farm, four square kilometres of working research farm, arboretum and ornamental gardens, and a National Historic Site of Canada. Inside the grid, Patterson Creek and Brown's Inlet are two inlets of canal water with parkland around them.
The resident's angle: the canal path is the single best piece of infrastructure in the neighbourhood — a flat, lit, uninterrupted route to downtown in summer and a skating route in winter. Two caveats. The Skateway can no longer be assumed: 2023 did not open for a single day, the first blank winter since 1971. And the Experimental Farm is a working research station, not a park — much of it is fields you may look at rather than lawns you may use.
24 places, with real drive times
Road-adjusted distance and drive time from the centre of the community to each destination, nearest first. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 24 places, nearest first.
Method: distances and drive times are estimated from a representative point near Fourth Avenue and Bank, using straight-line distance multiplied by a road factor and a tiered speed model — honest ranges, not routed times. The drive column understates how good this neighbourhood is on a bicycle: the canal path reaches Parliament Hill in about twenty-five minutes without a traffic light.
Every gym within reach
The Glebe's own facility is small: the Glebe Community Centre on Third Avenue, run by the City with the community association, with a gymnasium, programme rooms and the outdoor rink beside it. For a pool you cross the canal to Brewer in Old Ottawa South, or go down the pathway to Carleton University, whose 50-metre pool and fitness centre take public memberships.
- Gymnasium, programme rooms and the outdoor rink beside it through the winter
- Brewer Pool and Arena across the canal is the nearest 25-metre indoor pool
- Carleton's Athletics complex — a 50-metre pool, an ice house, courts and a large fitness centre — sells public memberships and is a fifteen-minute ride down the canal path
- Lansdowne's own fitness and studio tenants are the commercial option, and the closest
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Glebe Community Centre open | 175 Third Avenue, run by the City with the Glebe Community Association — a gymnasium, programme rooms, and the outdoor rink beside it in winter. Small, and the centre of the neighbourhood's non-commercial life. | 2–3 min |
| Brewer Pool and Arena open | The City pool and arena in Brewer Park across the canal in Old Ottawa South — the nearest full indoor pool, with a 25-metre tank and public swim schedules. | 4–7 min |
| Carleton University open | The Athletics complex on campus: a 50-metre pool, an ice house, courts, a large fitness centre and the Ravens' fieldhouse. Public memberships are available, and it is a straight run down the canal path. | 5–7 min |
| The Rideau Canal Skateway open | The neighbourhood's eastern and southern boundary, with entrances at Fifth Avenue and the Bank Street bridge. 7.8 kilometres of maintained ice for six to eight weeks a year — though the 2023 season did not open for a single day. | 2–3 min |
The free option is the canal, in both of its states. From January it is 7.8 kilometres of maintained ice with an entrance at Fifth Avenue; the rest of the year the same corridor is the flattest, longest uninterrupted running route in the city.
Two Victorian elementaries and one very large high school
First Avenue Public School, open since 1898, and Mutchmor on Fifth Avenue, from the 1890s with additions in 1911 and 1920, split the neighbourhood between them; Corpus Christi on Fourth Avenue is the Catholic elementary and dates from the same era. The catchment secondary is Glebe Collegiate Institute, one of the largest high schools in Ottawa and the reason Bank Street has a distinct character at three in the afternoon.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| First Avenue Public School | OCDSB | Opened in 1898 at 73 First Avenue and still the catchment elementary for the eastern half of the neighbourhood, with an early French immersion stream. |
| Mutchmor Public School | OCDSB | On Fifth Avenue, built in the 1890s with additions in 1911 and 1920 — the catchment elementary for the southern Glebe. |
| Corpus Christi School | OCSB | The Catholic elementary on Fourth Avenue, dating from the neighbourhood's first decade of development. |
| Glebe Collegiate Institute | OCDSB | The catchment secondary on Glebe Avenue, one of the largest high schools in the city and the reason the 3pm crowd on Bank Street is what it is. |
| Carleton University | Post-secondary | Twenty minutes' walk or a short ride down the canal path, on the neck of land between the canal and the Rideau River. |
The Glebe is one of the few inner-city Ottawa neighbourhoods with a genuinely large school-age population, and its schools are correspondingly full — which has produced boundary reviews and immersion-stream changes more than once. Confirm the current catchment for a specific address with the school board before you buy.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel — the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- The Fifth Avenue entrance to the Skateway is the neighbourhood's front door for six to eight weeks
- A daily mean of −10 °C, 59 cm of snow on average, and side streets that narrow to one lane by February
- The Glebe Community Centre's outdoor rink runs whenever the temperature allows
- The canal is at its busiest, and Fifth Avenue's parking is the price the neighbourhood pays for living beside it
- The coldest fortnight of the year — about 16 nights a year fall below −20 °C
- 67's home games at TD Place fill the Bank Street restaurants two or three nights a week
- The Skateway closes, usually in the first week, and the canal is drawn down
- Grit, potholes and the worst-looking weeks of the year on Bank Street
- March break empties the schools and the neighbourhood goes quiet for a week
- Bank Street's patios come out, and Lansdowne's season-ticket campaign starts
- Freshet on the Rideau peaks and Hog's Back Falls is at its loudest
- The canal reopens to boats in May, but the pathway is rideable from the first dry week
- The Canadian Tulip Festival fills Commissioners Park at Dow's Lake — the largest beds in the National Capital Region
- The Great Glebe Garage Sale, on the fourth Saturday, is the single busiest day of the neighbourhood's year
- Doors Open Ottawa, and the best cycling weeks before the humidity arrives
- Redblacks home games begin, and with them the game-day traffic and parking plan
- The Lansdowne farmers' market runs Sundays through to autumn
- Sunset near 8:50pm, and the canal path is busy until well after it
- A July daily mean of 21.2 °C, with humidex readings regularly past 35 — the mature street trees earn their keep
- Canada Day is a bike ride or a bus away, and the neighbourhood itself stays calm
- Brown's Inlet and Patterson Creek are at their best, and their most mosquito-ridden
- The federal government empties out and Bank Street is briefly navigable
- Peak humidity, and the month a century house without central air makes its argument
- The Glebe's sidewalk sale runs before the schools come back
- The best weather of the year, and the month the neighbourhood is at its most itself
- The Panda Game between Carleton and uOttawa fills TD Place and spills into the surrounding streets
- Glebe Collegiate's return puts several thousand teenagers on Bank Street at 3pm
- The maples along Queen Elizabeth Driveway and Patterson Creek are the reason people photograph the Glebe in October
- Redblacks season winds down and the Lansdowne calendar shifts to the 67's
- The first frost usually lands in the first half of the month
- Dark by half past four, and the month the heating bill on a pre-1914 house announces itself
- The canal is drained to its winter level and looks wrong for about three weeks
- The overnight winter parking ban starts, which on Glebe side streets is a genuine constraint
- The Bank Street BIA's lights go up and the independent shops have their one decisive month
- The outdoor rinks open when the cold holds, usually mid-month
- The first serious snow, and the discovery that a Glebe driveway is about one and a half cars wide
24 photographs of Ottawa and the region
Drawn from the site's shared, freely licensed Ottawa photo library — not photographs of The Glebe itself. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 24 photographs.
About these photographs. Openly licensed images geotagged in or near The Glebe, found on Wikimedia Commons and served from there with full attribution. Inline photos elsewhere on the page may still come from the site's shared Ottawa library.