Brock Real Estate

Beaverton has the widest range: Victorian and early 1900s houses on the older streets near the river, postwar bungalows, a few small subdivisions from the 1970s onward and waterfront or near-water homes along the shore roads, plus the 1853 Old Stone Church, a national historic site, and a fall fair each September. Cannington's core along the Beaver River is century brick; McCaskill's Mills Public School opened in 2006, MacLeod Park on the river is the gathering place and the library branch is named for Timothy Findley, the author who lived nearby. Sunderland is a compact village of century homes and newer infill around the fairgrounds and the arena, which the township is expanding, and it hosts a maple syrup festival every April. Outside the villages the township is working farms, hobby acreages and century farmhouses on concession roads, with a stock of cottages turned year-round homes in the lakeside hamlets. Nearly all of it runs on private wells and septic systems.

Highway 12 is the main road, running from Whitby and Brooklin up through Manchester and Sunderland to Beaverton and on to Orillia; Highway 7 shares its pavement as far as Sunderland. Highway 48 comes north from Markham through Stouffville and Sutton and ends at Highway 12 just south-east of Beaverton, which gives the west side of the township a second route toward the 404. Cannington sits on Regional Road 12 between the two. The 401 and the GO stations at Whitby and Oshawa are a long drive south, and most commuters use the car. Durham Region Transit reaches Beaverton with Route 507 on the current system map, running every 30 to 60 minutes, and On Demand can be booked from the driveway in the villages and rural areas; GO buses reportedly linked Cannington and Sunderland to Whitby GO in the past, so confirm what runs today. The Trent-Severn Waterway forms part of the northern boundary: the Talbot River enters Lake Simcoe near Gamebridge, five locks sit inside the township, and Parks Canada opens the system from May to October, which is why Beaverton's harbour matters to boaters.

Brock's public schools are Durham District School Board schools: Brock High School in Cannington for the whole township, with Beaverton Public School and Thorah Central Public School in the north, McCaskill's Mills Public School in Cannington and Sunderland Public School, which opened in 1957, in the south. Durham Catholic District School Board runs Holy Family Catholic School in Beaverton, opened in 1990; Catholic secondary students are bused to Whitby or Oshawa. Conseil scolaire Viamonde and MonAvenir cover French-language schooling. Attendance boundaries and busing are the boards' decisions and depend on the exact lot, so verify a specific address with DDSB or DCDSB before treating a school as certain. Post-secondary is a drive: Ontario Tech and Durham College in Oshawa, Georgian College in Orillia and Barrie, and Fleming College in Lindsay are the closest options, and none is a daily commute by transit.

Lake Simcoe is the draw: Beaverton's harbour and yacht club, the beach communities along the shore, ice fishing in winter and the Trent-Severn route to Georgian Bay and the Kawarthas in summer. Shoreline work, docks and anything in the floodplain need a permit from the conservation authority; the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority regulated this area and holds the Beaverton Dam lands, and it was reportedly merged into a new Lake Huron regional authority in March 2026, so check who issues permits now. There is no hospital in the township. Lakeridge Health Port Perry is the nearest emergency department for the south and centre, and Orillia's hospital serves the Beaverton end; a community health centre operates in Cannington. Daily errands run on the village main streets, with larger shopping in Port Perry, Lindsay, Orillia or Whitby. Each village has an arena or community centre, the Beaverton and Sunderland fairs anchor the fall, and the Cannington Haunted Attraction fills MacLeod Park every October.