 Although laid-out in farm lots by 1805, most of the lots were purchased by some of Etobicoke's early great land owners who lived elsewhere in the township leaving this part of the Humber Valley little developed with no homes along what became Royal York Road from Dundas north to Eglinton.The Iroquois shoreline, remnant of the ancient Lake Iroquois, which forms an escarpment along Dundas in Etobicoke, turns far to the north in this area, cut away by the Humber River creating the Humber Valley.The western extension of St. Clair Avenue (now called Rathburn in Etobicoke) ran through the centre of the area and it was near this point the local developer Robert Home Smith built his home 'Edenbridge' (named after a village in southern England) overlooking the Humber Valley, at the turn of the century, after purchasing much of the surrounding land.