Bicycle Picnics in Charlottetown

As the generous L² made us breakfast in bed this morning, our planned breakfast meal of smoked salmon bagels got shunted ahead to lunch.

“I propose that we take the lunch, get on our bicycles, and go for a picnic,” said Lisa.

“Yes!”, I replied.

We cycled out Riverside Drive to Murchison Lane, turned right, went past the Queen Elizabeth Hospital to the grounds of Hillsborough Hospital, where we set up our picnic on the beach, fortuitously at low tide. Downtown-to-picnic was a pleasant 14 minute bicycle ride, mostly on separated multi-use trails. It was the perfect distance for a first-time-bicycle-picnic.

The beach at Hillsborough Hospital is covered with bricks; if memory serves, G. told me these come primarily from Falconwood, the original home to the hospital (a building you can see on the cover of Beyond the Asylum: The Evolution of Mental Health Care in Prince Edward Island 1846-2017, by Tina Pranger)

Many of the bricks were inscribed with the name of the brickyard; we pieces together one partial brick with “BATHVI”:

…with another inscribed “VILLE”:

…and thus surmised these were bricks from the Bathville Brick and Fire Clay Works in Scotland. Bricks that came a long way, stood as part of a building for a long time, and have now survived, still readable, all these years on the beach. Amazing.