Canterbury, West Vancouver: Homes for Sale, Prices, Schools and Daily Life

Canterbury lies high on the south slope of Hollyburn Ridge. The West Vancouver Archives describes it as the area from Lawson Creek in the east to McDonald Creek in the west, and from Chippendale Road in the south up to the 1,200 foot level of the ridge, which is 366 metres above the sea. The same record places Chartwell to the east, Whitby Estates to the west and Cammeray to the south. MLS® listings file these streets under the area name Canterbury WV.

The street plan is short. Chippendale Road runs along the bottom, Finch Hill climbs from it and Pinecrest Drive crosses the top. Errigal Place, Langton Place, Marlowe Place and Chippendale Court are the short streets around them. Pinecrest Drive is the most northern street on the map, and the forest trails begin at its upper end.

Two sources agree on the height. The District's 1998 parks map, printed in its Lawson Creek walk brochure, draws the 300 metre height line beside Chippendale Road and the 350 metre line at Finch Hill and Pinecrest Drive. Natural Resources Canada's elevation data gives 295 metres at the bus stop on Chippendale Road and 345 metres on Finch Hill.

In our view, that height is why people buy here: on October 11, 2026, 86% of listing descriptions in Canterbury mentioned a view. We think the area suits a household that wants a large house, a view and forest within a short walk, and that has a car for each driver. A buyer who wants to walk to a cafe or a grocery store will be happier in Ambleside or Dundarave.

Loggers worked this slope long before builders did. The District's brochure for the Lawson Creek Forestry Heritage Walk says the Shields log dam, near the Pinecrest Bridge, was built in 1917. Its pond stored floating blocks of red cedar and fed a flume, a wooden channel of running water, that carried the blocks to a shingle mill 2 km below. A cable railway built in the early 1920s to bring cedar down the slope was last used in 1926. The brochure adds that all the trees on the private land between the bridge, at 350 metres, and the Skyline Trail, at 540 metres, were cut during the 1950s. The North Shore News named the dam's builders in 1995 as Bob and Ross Shields of the Vedder River Shingle Co.

Houses came in the 1990s. A subdivision is a piece of land divided into building lots. The West Vancouver Archives notes that British Pacific Properties, the company that began the British Properties, proposed one here under the name Canterbury Precinct. On March 20, 1992, an advertisement in the North Shore News under the names of British Pacific Properties and Ottmann Development Ltd. offered 28 building lots in Canterbury, priced from $510,000 to $695,000 with GST included.

On December 18, 1992, the same paper reported that a 79-lot Canterbury subdivision had been approved. The report placed the land on the western boundary of the British Properties, between McDonald Creek and the east branch of Lawson Creek and north of the Westhill subdivision. Four creeks ran through it, so the plan needed eight creek crossings. The creek corridors were to be protected, with trails along them and a link to the Baden-Powell Trail to the north. One of the plan's three parks was to follow Lawson Creek and include the dam.

The dam was before council again in 1995. On February 13, council agreed to spend $6,000 on a further study of it. The paper, which now wrote of an 80-lot subdivision, reported that British Pacific Properties would pay $25,000 toward removing or restoring the dam and was dedicating it to the municipality as a park. The map on this page marks Shield's Dam Park today.

Canterbury has houses, small parks and trails, and no shops. The map data on this page shows no grocery store, cafe, pharmacy or clinic inside the area. It names an IGA as the nearest grocery store and the West Vancouver Memorial Library as the nearest library.

In our experience, residents drive down Westhill Drive and 21st Street to Marine Drive for daily shopping and go to Park Royal for a larger trip. The 256 bus uses the same roads. TransLink's schedule gives it 12 minutes from Chippendale Road to Marine Drive at 17th Street and 19 minutes to Park Royal.

Small parks lie among the houses. The map marks Finch Hill Park, Normanby Park and Shield's Dam Park inside the area, with Westhill Park and Douglas Woodward Park past its edges.

The trails start at the top of Pinecrest Drive. The District puts the start of its Lawson Creek Forestry Heritage Walk on the west side of the Pinecrest Bridge, rates the walk moderate and allows 3.5 hours for it. The brochure numbers ten stops. The first is the dam, and later ones include the route of the cable railway and a trench where loggers of the early 1900s dragged logs downhill with a steam engine.

Higher up, the brochure's map marks the Skyline Trail and the Baden-Powell Trail along the power line above Canterbury. The photo at the top of this page was taken on the Baden-Powell Trail between Capilano Lake and Horseshoe Bay. The brochure says walkers may see birds and small mammals, and now and then a deer or a bear.

Check who owns the ground before you treat the whole forest as a park. The brochure, reprinted in December 2006, says parts of these trails cross private land owned by British Pacific Properties. It names the Skyline Trail as the boundary, with private land on the downhill side and public land on the uphill side. Park Dedication Bylaw No. 5337 took effect on June 3, 2024 and dedicates the District's own land above the 1,200 foot level as park.

Cypress Provincial Park covers the mountains above. BC Parks lists Hollyburn Mountain, at 1,325 metres, among its peaks, and says Cypress Mountain Resort lies entirely inside the park and has 11 km of snowshoe trails. The park takes its name from the yellow cypress trees that grow near its ridge tops.