Visitor Information

The Township of Asphodel-Norwood has a population of just fewer than 4,000 with a small portion of these residents being seasonal.

Natural Physical Features
The Ouse River flows diagonally through the Township and specifically through the Village of Norwood. The river created a pleasing physical environment through mature vegetation along its banks, and widens to the north of the urban centre of Norwood, creating two relatively large ponds.
Another natural feature of significance is the Norwood esker, which contains a high potential source of aggregates. The esker is also the main source for the Urban centre of Norwood's water supply.

History of our Township
In 1820, Richard Birdsall, a licensed surveyor, first surveyed the Township of Asphodel. Concession lines were laid out, as well as side roads, at intervals about double that of a concession. Each block contained five lots of about 200 acres of land and they were numbered consecutively so that new settlers could locate their particular grants by following the surveyor's markings until they had reached the lands allotted to them.
The first permanent settler of the Township was John Beckett, who came from Cobourg, crossing Rice Lake with his family in a self-made boat in 1821. During the next four years, John Beckett was joined by ten additional families who found their way through dense forests by way of Alnwick and Percy Townships,crossing the Trent Rover about a mile upstream from where the Village of Hastings now stands.
Progress within the next ten years was slow, as the population for 1835 was recorded to be 428, most of whom lived in three different settlements; Hastings, Norwood and Westwood. According to the same record, there were only four framed houses in the entire Township.