Mount Pleasant Cemetery

I don’t know why this Unilocal profile is named «Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries». That’s the company name. Their office is on Overlea Boulevard in East York, in case anyone is wondering.
Any way, I’ll review the Mount Pleasant cemetery itself. Well…
I have relatives in this cemetery, so I go every so often. It’s one of Toronto’s greatest and most historic places, in my opinion.
I see runners and cyclists there all the time, and I don’t blame them for coming, it’s great place to bike and walk!
The Gardens of Remembrance (the one with fountain) are specific for cremation and it’s really nice! It includes a glass «house» called the Conservatory.
There are so many famous faces buried here. William Lyon Mackenzie King, Igor Korolev, Glenn Gould, and more.
They also have a mausoleum, but it’s eerie and not the best I’ve seen. If you want a nice mausoleum, maybe check out Holy Cross, Westminster, Prospect, or Elgin Mills. They have nicer mausoleums.
Whether you love historic cemeteries, or if you’re just taking a nice stroll, come to MP! :)

For years, having seen snippets of this cemetery flash by while on the subway, I’ve wanted to explore these grounds. Yesterday I had the chance and I am in awe of its beauty.
Perhaps it sounds strange to some but I thoroughly enjoy walking through cemeteries reading headstones and enjoying the calmness. I don’t know, I guess I find it peaceful.
This cemetery is so vast that I used the help of Find a Grave:
and a map of the grounds to plan my day.
I was able to find the graves and pay my respects to such greats as Glen Gould, William Lyon Mackenzie King and Timothy Eaton to name a few. What a humbling experience.

Great place and what an amazing oasis for tree and plant lovers.
Wonderful place for runners and walkers to find some peace in this crazy city.
Would have rated higher but they sadly don’t allow dogs or roller blades…

Mount Pleasant Cemetery is a well kept, beautiful cemetery adorned by flamboyant as well as more modest monuments, graves, and mausoleums. Walking through the various plots (but on the actual grounds! That is too disrespectful), you see different points in time of Toronto history. Early Anglo-​Saxon families (late 1800s) to more recent times. This also carries a difference in surnames, how Toronto has transitioned from Anglo names to Chinese, Polish, Spanish, Jewish, etc names. It’s one way to visualize the diversity that Toronto has experienced.
I like coming here in the fall and spring to take pictures of the beautiful trees. I took plenty of pictures of beautiful flowering trees, including Cherry blossoms.
If you are runner, this makes for a good running trail because it provides a respite from the noise, congestion and transit of city life.
In some ways, Mount Pleasant Cemetery is a park inside the city — a green area where you can walk in nature but less than 5 minutes from the city. It’s a bit weird and freaky to say this about a cemetery, but it is an oasis in our city.

Mixed review:
(1) For the cemetery and what is contains, five stars. Agree with other reviewers. Comparable to other great 19^th century cemeteries, with perhaps not as many folks of international renown. Beautiful monuments with some unusual ones mixed in, plus lovely landscaping.
(2) For the management and the families of the wealthier inhabitants (or perhaps the proper word is decadents), one star. I was with a photography club there today and were warned by a particularly gnarly worker that we «needed permission» to take photos. Connie, perhaps because you visited alone in the winter and we visited as a group on Halloween, maybe this caused the attention. In any case, the cemetery manager, who was much more polite, saw us and explained that the cemetery itself did not care (than they should have explained this to their staff) but the problem was that some people sued for images posted on the internet because the plots themselves are privately owned.
I do not get the big f-​king deal. I’d be honoured if someone took pictures of the graves of my relatives as long as they were used in a respectful manner. I have taken tons of pictures in cemeteries in my former hometown of Chicago and the reaction there has been either indifference of helpfulness (a caretaker in one of the larger but lesser known ones gave me a private tour and pointed out many important graves because it was a slow day and she liked to gab). Furthermore, most historical cemeteries I’ve been in the States are very proud of their status and their denizens (I guess this is the proper word) and offer tours.
If someone can explain to me — perhaps on a forum — why there should be such a large gap between Canadians and Americans on the subject of the dead I’d appreciate it. Also, the explanation that the plots are private property seems to imply that one cannot take a picture from the sidewalk of an architecturally significant, historical or just plain interesting house and post it publicly, since this is also private property viewable from a public space.
My opinion is that if something can be seen publicly and is not a copyrighted object, it is not subject to privacy. After all, security cameras watch us in public spaces all the time. (Though personally, I think they should be banned from washrooms.)

Yes, I agree with Melissa — it does seem a bit creepy to rate a cemetery, but this one’s a beauty… especially in the winter months.
As a photographer, this place is a godsend. Full of great mausoleums and structures, and devoid of people walking through your shot. (The dead are very respectful.)
It’s also kind of cool to come with a friend and try to one-​up him or her on who’s found the coolest headstone. With the turn-​of-​the-​century old money buried in this place, it’s more challenging than it sounds.
Just try to ignore the fact that you’re walking over a bunch of dead people, and you’re fine.
Du du du du, du du du du…

Yeah, it definitely feels weird to rate a cemetery. But at least it’s the nicest cemetery in the city.
Mount Pleasant is in that nice area of uptown where there are lots of street level shops but you can still see that there was once grass beneath all the concrete. The area already has a lot of gorgeous public parks (especially around Lawrence) but Mount Pleasant takes the cake for gorgeous.
I have a couple family members buried here (mostly in the indoor portion) but I do love walking through the area and exploring. Definitely creepier at nighttime (and a much higher possibility of getting lost in the huge space), but it’s actually kind of pretty during the day.
If you live in Toronto and have never been to Mount Pleasant, it’s definitely something you should see, because everyone knows at least one person buried here (even if it’s just the people who owned Eatons).
For tourists, if you can get over the fact that it’s a cemetery, it’s definitely a nice peaceful day trip, in a really nice part of town.

Mount Pleasant is reminiscent of an old European cemetery, with lots of ostentatious (and not-​so-​ostentatious) monuments, graves, and mausoleums. It’s perhaps even more diverse, since pretty much every style of interment and marker is found here. Sure, there’s lots of regular headstones, but there are also plenty of celtic crosses, obelisks, stars of David, Greco-​Roman columns, and even a few Chinese monuments.
Even if you don’t «know» anyone who’s there, it’s still a pleasant (sorry) place to stroll or bike through. There are colour-​coded paths to help you get around, although keep in mind the cemetery is bisected by Mount Pleasant Road, and the only crossing is at the north end.
There are quite a few famous people buried here; my personal favourite is the Eaton crypt. Tucked away along the south-​western edge, it’s as big as the houses abutting the cemetery.

I feel weird to rate a cemetery. 4 stars, I’m not «yay! I’m a fan», but rather, «this is a really nice place». my grandma has been buried here since before I was borne. I’ve grown up with this cemetery and it’s a place that is very close to my heart.
The cemetery itself is pretty large. It covers both the East and West side of Mt Pleasant. My Grandma is buried on the East side. The first thing that you notice upon entering is what a maze it is in there. I don’t think I’d be able to find my grandma’s grave site if I were ever to visit her by myself!
The lawn is always kept pretty manicured and the grass is surprisingly green, I have theories on that, but I’ll keep them to myself. The paths in the cemetery are paved, so a lot of joggers, rollerbladers and cyclist come here to get their groove on.
Just a very peaceful and beautiful place to meditate and appreciate the value of life.

My aunt took me to Mount Pleasant Cemetery on a snowy winter day. Because of the weather, we didn’t spend too much time there but I had the feeling of tremendous tranquility and peace. The grounds are extensive in this historic cemetery, founded in 1876.
I came to pay my respects to Glenn Gould, the brilliant and eccentric pianist who lived in and loved Toronto (and Canada). We picked up a map at the entrance and found his humble grave. It was close to quite a few Chinese graves (amusing). He chose a ground burial. The stone has the outline of a piano, his name and his birth date (Sept. 25, 1932) and his date of death (Oct. 4, 1982). He predicted he would die at the age of 50.
Plot: Section 38, No. 1050
I think I first learned about Glenn Gould when I watched 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould. The film really impressed me — the music, the unusual episodic format, the man. His ambiguous sexuality was also intriguing and his intense desire for privacy.
I also bought some Gould CDs from HMV (at the time, these recordings weren’t available in the US).