St. Agatha

You can spot St. Agatha from miles away by the church spire on its hill. It is a historic Wilmot village of nurseries, farms, and long country views. The village sits on a rise in the farmland north-west of Kitchener, where Erb's Road meets Notre Dame Drive. Its quiet residential streets, such as St. Anne Avenue, are lined with mature trees, and farm fields begin at the edge of the village. Two former inns and an 1855 schoolhouse still stand at the crossroads. In summer, evening ball games fill the lit diamond at the Lions park. The shops of west Waterloo are a few minutes' drive east, and Baden is about 6 km south-west.

Amish Mennonites settled here in 1824, and Lutherans and Roman Catholics followed in the 1830s. First called Wilmot, the village was renamed for its Catholic church, St. Agatha, in 1852. St. Jerome's College opened here in 1865 and is now part of the University of Waterloo.

The 2021 census counted about 180 homes in St. Agatha. More than eight in ten are single detached houses, and the rest are apartments in low buildings and duplexes. About two in five homes were built in 1960 or earlier, and most of the rest between 1961 and 1990.

St. Agatha is about 21 km by road from Kitchener City Hall, a drive of about 20 minutes, by Notre Dame Drive, Highway 7/8 and the Conestoga Parkway. Erb's Road runs east into Waterloo. Highway 401 is reached by the Conestoga Parkway. Grand River Transit's Route 77 can be taken from Petersburg or Baden, a few minutes south.

St. Agatha Lions Community Park, at 1791 Erb's Road, has a lit softball diamond, a junior playground and a picnic shelter. Sararas Park, on St. Anne Avenue, has a playground, picnic tables and a basketball court. Baden's library and shops are about 6 km south-west, and west Waterloo is a few minutes east.

• Sir Adam Beck Public School — JK to Grade 8. The public elementary school for St. Agatha, in Baden.
• Waterloo-Oxford District Secondary School — Grades 9 to 12. The public secondary school for St. Agatha, in Baden.
• Baden Public School — JK to Grade 8. The township's public French immersion school, from Grade 2, in Baden.
• Holy Family Catholic Elementary School — JK to Grade 8. Wilmot's Catholic elementary school, in New Hamburg.
• Resurrection Catholic Secondary School — Grades 9 to 12. The Catholic secondary school that Holy Family students go on to, in Kitchener.