Eldon House

Captain John Harris named the house after the Earl of Eldon, whom he admired. Heritage records describe Harris as treasurer of the London District, a post he held from 1821, and a leading political figure in the local Family Compact. He and his wife Amelia Ryerse, born in 1798 at Port Ryerse on Lake Erie, had married in June 1815 and had twelve children, ten of whom survived. According to Wikipedia, the family moved in on 10 September 1834 and occupied the house for the next 125 years. Edward William Harris added an addition in 1877 (a heritage register gives 1878), and in 1887 George Becher Harris and his wife Lucy took over ownership. The family took a long world tour in 1897 funded by Lucy's inheritance. Amelia Archange Harris, daughter of George Becher Harris, was the last family member to live in the house.

Amelia Harris began keeping a diary in 1857 and kept it for almost 25 years, until weeks before her death, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. It grew out of the weekly letters she wrote to her son John in England, and covers almost 9,000 days with only a few hundred entries missing. The originals are held at Western University, which also holds the wider Harris family papers. The published diaries of Harris women are the subject of The Eldon House Diaries (Champlain Society, 1994).

The Harris family gave the house and gardens to the City of London around 1959, according to Wikipedia; the house's own website says it has been preserved since 1960, and heritage records give 1961, so the year is best treated as approximate. The house has been run as a museum since, and the property is now surrounded by Harris Park, once an estate of about 11 acres.

The house's own site calls it an excellent example of Georgian architecture, while the federal register describes a two-storey, wood-sided Regency-style house with bevelled siding, a verandah across the front, brick chimneys and symmetrical shuttered windows. The property also includes a coach house and a greenhouse, and sits on the southeast portion of Harris Park, near the forks of the Thames. The City of London designated it in 1977 under the Ontario Heritage Act, and it appears on the Canadian Register of Historic Places; the register calls it the most important heritage property in London, a description it records rather than a measured fact. A one-storey interpretive centre built in 2003 is not part of the designation.

The museum says the house is virtually unchanged since the nineteenth century. It holds family heirlooms, furnishings and treasures, including souvenirs from the 1897 world tour and the African collection of Ronald Harris, a mining engineer. The museum offers online exhibitions such as 190 Objects of Eldon House and an exhibition on the matriarch Amelia Ryerse Harris.

The grounds are described by the museum as among the most beautiful in the city and are best viewed from May to September. Landscape features in the heritage record include an arbour and fencing. Annual events include Canada Day and a Victorian Christmas, per Wikipedia.

• Eldon House runs self-guided tours and education programs; check its website for current hours, tickets and events.
• It is a short walk from Museum London on the same street.
• A Voyzo private tour provides a private vehicle and driver with door-to-door pickup, so combining Eldon House with other downtown stops is straightforward.