Ashcroft Manor Ranch, known also as Ashcroft Ranch, is an historic ranch in the Thompson Country of British Columbia, Canada, founded by Clement Francis Cornwall (later Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia) and his brother, Henry Cornwall. [1] Ashcroft Manor's main house and buildings are an historic site adjacent to the Trans-Canada Highway and west of the Canadian Pacific main line, which named its flag stop Ashcroft Station at the current site of the village of Ashcroft. The manor is 11 kilometres (7 mi) south of Cache Creek on BC Highway 1 at the access road junction to the village of Ashcroft below on the Thompson River.
In the heyday of the Cornwall brothers, Ashcroft Manor was one of the centres of British-style country life in the British Columbia Interior, and was famous for its fox-hunting parties and line of hounds, as well as race horses, and drew the early province's high society to these and other entertainments.
Overlooking Ashcroft Manor to the north is the Cache Creek Waste Disposal Facility. The name Cornwall Hills, referring to the southern part of the low hill-range between the Thompson and the upper basin of Hat Creek, is derived from that of the informal name of the ranch, the Cornwall Ranch. The Cornwall name is shared by Cornwall Creek, a tributary entering the Thompson River on the lower side of the ranch holdings. [2]
Cache Creek is a historic transportation junction and incorporated village 354 kilometres (220 mi) northeast of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. It is on the Trans-Canada Highway in the province of British Columbia at a junction with Highway 97. The same intersection and the town that grew around it was at the point on the Cariboo Wagon Road where a branch road, and previously only a trail, led east to Savona's Ferry on Kamloops Lake. This community is also the point at which a small stream, once known as Riviere de la Cache, joins the Bonaparte River.
Charles Augustus "Charlie" Semlin was a Canadian politician and rancher.
Lytton is a village of about 250 residents in southern British Columbia, Canada, on the east side of the Fraser River and primarily the south side of the Thompson River, where it flows southwesterly into the Fraser. The community includes the Village of Lytton and the surrounding community of the Lytton First Nation, whose name for the place is Camchin, also spelled Kumsheen.
Basque, British Columbia, is located in the province of British Columbia, Canada, near the village of Ashcroft. It is the post office and whistlestop-crossing on the historic Basque Ranch, one of the earliest ranches in the Interior of British Columbia. One of the descendants of the Basque family is Garnet Basque, a notable popular historian in BC who has written extensively on ranching and the gold rush history.
Ashcroft is a village in the Thompson Country of the Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It is 30 kilometres (19 mi) downstream from the west end of Kamloops Lake, at the confluence of the Bonaparte and Thompson Rivers, and is in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District.
Bedard Aspen Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located in the Cornwall Hills to the west of Cache Creek-Ashcroft in that province's Thompson Country region. The valley of Hat Creek is to its west.
Blue Earth Lake Provincial Park is a provincial park in the Upper Hat Creek area at the south end of the Cornwall Hills, just northwest of Ashcroft, British Columbia, Canada.
Cornwall Hills Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, immediately west of Cache Creek, protecting part of the Cornwall Hills including their highest summit which features an old fire lookout.
Elephant Hill Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, protecting Elephant Hill, a prominent landmark adjacent to the Trans-Canada Highway at the cut-off for the town of Ashcroft, a few miles south of the town of Cache Creek. The park is approximately 968 hectares in area.
Harry Lake Aspen Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located northwest of Ashcroft near the upper basin of Hat Creek.
Oregon Jack Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada located in the Clear Range west of Ashcroft. It protects the limestone canyon of Oregon Jack Creek, at the head of which is a waterfall named the Notch, above which is included a wetland area. The site was an important First Nations site and there are pictographs, culturally modified trees and a site known as the Three Sisters Rock Shelter.
Clinton is a village in British Columbia, Canada, located approximately 40 km (25 mi) northwest of Cache Creek and 30 km south of 70 Mile House.
The Bonaparte Indian Band a.k.a. Bonaparte First Nation, is a member band of the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council of the Secwepemc (Shuswap) people.
The Ashcroft First Nation is a First Nations government Thompson Canyon area of the Central Interior of the Canadian province of British Columbia. Its Indian Reserves are located near the town of Ashcroft, British Columbia, it is a member of the Nlaka'pamux Nation Tribal Council.
Clement Francis Cornwall was a Canadian parliamentarian and the third Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia.
Hat Creek is a tributary of the Bonaparte River in British Columbia, Canada, joining that stream at Carquile, which is also known as Lower Hat Creek and is the site of the Hat Creek Ranch heritage museum and visitor centre. The Hat Creek basin includes a broad upper plateau area encircled by the gentle but high summits of the Clear Range and, to its east, the Cornwall Hills; this area is known as Upper Hat Creek. Adjacent to Upper Hat Creek is the gateway to Marble Canyon and a rancherie of the Pavilion First Nation, who are both a St'at'imc and Secwepemc people. During the Fraser Canyon and Cariboo Gold Rushes an important trail northwards from the lower Fraser Canyon led from Foster Bar on the Fraser via Laluwissen Creek into Upper Hat Creek, then via the creek to the Bonaparte River. The economy of the basin is ranching-based and includes some of the oldest ranches in the British Columbia Interior. On the northwest edge of the Upper Hat Creek basin there is a large lignite deposit and several exploratory pits, some dating back to the 19th century but some more recent, part of an intended, but now shelved Hat Creek coal-thermal proposal.
Thompson Country, also referred to as The Thompson and sometimes as the Thompson Valley and historically known as the Couteau Country or Couteau District, is a historic geographic region of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, more or less defined by the basin of the Thompson River. This is a tributary of the Fraser; the major city in the area is Kamloops.
Cache Creek, originally Rivière de la Cache, is a tributary of the Bonaparte River in the Thompson Country of the Interior of British Columbia, Canada, joining that river at the town of Cache Creek, British Columbia, which is located at the junction of the Trans-Canada and Cariboo Highways.
Arrowstone Provincial Park is a provincial park in the Thompson Country of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, located to the northeast of the town of Cache Creek. The park was established by Order-in-Council in 1996 with an area of 6203 hectares. In 2000 its boundaries were slightly reduced, such that its area is now 6175 hectares.
The Cornwall Hills are a range of mountainous hills in the Thompson Country of the Interior of British Columbia, Canada. They are located west and southwest of the communities of Cache Creek and Ashcroft and form the divide between the basin of the Thompson and that of Upper Hat Creek to the west. Named for Clement Francis Cornwall, distinguished colonist and later Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia, and his brother Henry, who owned the Ashcroft Manor Ranch, also known as the Cornwall Ranch, which lay on the western slope of these hills. To their north are the Trachyte Hills, as far as the middle basin of Hat Creek and ending at Lower Hat Creek, and to their south is part of the Clear Range which forms the rest of the basin divide around Hat Creek.