Rural Uxbridge

Rural Uxbridge is all of Uxbridge Township outside the town's settlement boundary: from the Pickering and Whitchurch-Stouffville lines on the south and west to the Brock and Georgina lines on the north, with Scugog along the east. It takes in Goodwood, Coppins Corners, Glen Major and Altona on the moraine to the south and west, Leaskdale, Sandford, Zephyr and Udora in the former Scott Township to the north, and the concession roads, forests and horse farms between them. TRREB files every one of these under a single community name, so one listing may be a village lot in Zephyr and the next a hundred-acre farm on a numbered concession.

The stock splits by geography. On the moraine south and west of town, Glen Major, Coppins Corners and the Lake Ridge Road corridor carry custom houses from the 1970s onward on two- to ten-acre wooded lots, plus estate enclaves of bungalows and two-storeys on one- to two-acre lots off Concession 6 and Concession 7. Goodwood is a proper hamlet, with Victorian frame and brick houses along Highway 47 and the side streets, postwar bungalows behind them and a few newer infills. The northern farm belt around Leaskdale, Sandford, Zephyr and Udora holds century farmhouses on 50- and 100-acre parcels, red-brick Ontario cottages in the hamlet cores, and severed lots with 1980s and 1990s bungalows along the sideroads. Barns, drive sheds, indoor riding arenas and workshops are common and often count for as much as the house itself. Almost every property draws from its own well and drains to its own septic bed, many parcels fall under Oak Ridges Moraine or Greenbelt designations that limit severances, and a surprising number still lack a current survey.

The car does the work. Highway 47 runs from Highway 12 near Greenbank through town and Goodwood to Stouffville and Highway 404; Brock Road, Regional Road 1, heads south via Claremont to the Pickering 407 interchange and north to Leaskdale; Lake Ridge Road drops from Highway 47 past the ski hills to the Highway 412 and 407 junction at the Whitby line; and the Zephyr and Ravenshoe roads tie the north hamlets to Highway 48 and Highway 12. Tolls came off the provincial 407 on June 1, 2025 and off the 412 in April 2022. GO bus route 71 makes a flag stop in Goodwood on Highway 47 between Uxbridge and Old Elm, Mount Joy and Union Station. Durham Region Transit route 905 joins Uxbridge, Port Perry and Whitby GO, and On Demand covers the concessions through the app or 311, weekdays from 6 a.m. to midnight. Cyclists get quiet gravel concessions; trails do the rest.

Goodwood Public School serves the moraine hamlets and Scott Central Public School in Sandford serves the northern farm belt, both public schools under the Durham board, and both send graduates to Uxbridge Secondary School in town; Claremont Public School in Pickering feeds Uxbridge Secondary too, which matters along the Pickering line. Families in the far north near Udora may be assigned toward Brock schools in Sunderland; confirm that with the board instead of assuming. Catholic pupils are assigned to St. Joseph Catholic School on Quaker Village Drive in town, part of the Durham Catholic system, and ride to a Catholic secondary school in the south. Neither French-language board has a school in the township. Bus routes are long, snow-day cancellations are common on the moraine hills, and every boundary is set by the board for the exact address.

This is trail country: Durham Regional Forest off Concession 7, managed by the Lake Simcoe conservation authority for hiking, mountain biking and skiing; Glen Major Forest and Walker Woods in the Duffins headwaters under the TRCA; the Countryside Preserve at the town's edge; the Oak Ridges Trail plus the Trans Canada Trail crossing the township; and Uxbridge Urban Provincial Park, 532 hectares opened in 2024 with its office at 565 Old Stouffville Road. Dagmar and Lakeridge, where Toronto Ski Club members first skied a rented farm in 1938, cover winter. Leaskdale has the Montgomery manse and church, a National Historic Site since 1994 with a museum open on weekends, and Goodwood and Zephyr keep halls and churches. Errands mean Brock Street in Uxbridge, Stouffville for the moraine side, or Sunderland and Port Perry for the north, and the Uxbridge Cottage Hospital's round-the-clock emergency department is the closest care. Hamlet stores are few, so a chest freezer and a plan matter.

Rural Uxbridge suits equestrians, hobby farmers, builders of a custom house on acreage, and remote workers who want forest out the back door and can reach Markham or the 407 in half an hour. It suits buyers who will own a tractor or pay someone who does, and who see a well test and a septic check as routine. Skip it if you need transit, a five-minute grocery run, reliable cell and internet on every road, or a lot they can freely sever and build on, since the moraine plan and the Greenbelt decide much of that.