Tillsonburg organizes summer around Lake Lisgar. Memorial Park sits on the shore with mature trees and a picnic pavilion, steps from the Community Centre and Lake Lisgar Waterpark, where the heated pool and giant twister waterslide set the family calendar from Father's Day weekend into early September. The Town lists fourteen neighbourhood parks; Memorial Park is the one people name first. If you want a hoop, J.L. Scott McLean Outdoor Recreation Pad on Hardy Ave or South Ridge Park will do.
History has a street address. Annandale National Historic Site holds the 1880s mansion built by first mayor E.D. Tillson and a community museum with tens of thousands of artifacts, so school groups and weekend visitors share the same door on Tillson Ave. Visiting Tillsonburg pages also point to Station Arts Centre on Bridge Street W, which keeps the creative half of town visible without pretending this is a big-city arts district. T:GO Transit is the in-town mini-bus brand: fixed route, Monday to Friday, exact fare, the practical answer when someone asks how you get across town without a car.
Tillsonburg News fronts mix town collisions with wider Oxford and Norfolk county politics, which is how a Southwestern Ontario town feels wired into its neighbours. The civic centre of gravity stays local: parks, waterpark season, Annandale tours, and whether T:GO is running on time. On the OpenStats City Score for 2026, Tillsonburg sits at rank 46 of 125. Hometown character is Lake Lisgar first, then the Tillson name carved into Annandale.