Nova Scotia Day 2: Rural Delights

Day 2 was a definite highlight for us as we were able to visit 8 churches and managed to get inside a record-breaking 7 of them.  We began bright and early in Wolfville with St John's Anglican where the minister was kind enough to give us a brief history of her church as well as a recommendation to visit the Covenanter's Church at Grand Pre of 1804 (thanks so much for the tip!).  This beauty was originally built as a Presbyterian meeting house without a tower.  The interior is in excellent shape and complete with box pews.
Left: Covenanter's Church, Grand Pre
Below: Interior, Covenanter's Church, Grand Pre

Next was St Andrew's Anglican of 1890 in Hansport.  Here too, we were lucky enough to have the minister unlock the church for us so that we were able to see the wonderful scissor-beam roof.

Above: Detail of the scissor beams in St Andrew's, Hansport

After this, we were fortunate to see not one, but two fantastic examples of James Gibbs style churches gone Gothic in Brooklyn and in Centre Rawdon.

 Above: St Paul's Anglican, Centre Rawdon 1845

From here we went on to see two rural delights in two very different styles of Gothic.  The first, St Paul's Anglican at Northfield, is quite Picturesque with simple lancet windows and stepped buttresses.

 Above: St Paul's Anglican, Northfield

The second, St Peter's Anglican at Upper Kennetcook, is a prime example of Carpenter's Gothic, incorporating domestic motifs and carpentry into this interesting church.

 Above: Detail of the bell cote, St Peter's Anglican, Upper Kennetcook

On the whole, it was a busy day, but an incredibly rewarding one.  We ended up in Lunenburg in the evening for the opening reception of the 2010 SSAC-SEAC conference, and we are looking forward to exploring the south shore in our free time.

Nova Scotia Day 1

Today we arrived in Nova Scotia and true to form we got off the plane and headed straight to the nearest 19th-century building. Our first stop was St. John's Anglican Church, Truro (1881).

 Above: Jess and Candace fresh off the plane at St John's, Truro

Also in Truro we found the Provincial Normal College (1877), which was an unexpected treat - a Second Empire School with eclectic ornamentation - a real beauty!

Above: The Provincial Normal College, Truro

We were then off to rural Northern Nova Scotia for an afternoon of churching in Great Village, Moose River, Diligent River, Maitland, and Lattie's Brook.

Stay tuned - tomorrow we're back to Maitland for some amazing domestic buildings!

SSAC this week!

We leave tomorrow for Nova Scotia to attend the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada Annual Conference in Lunenburg.
We have a couple of days before and after the conference to sneak in some Nova Scotia buildings, so keep checking in; we'll be posting from Nova Scotia all week!

Building of the Week: St Paul's Catholic, Fulford Bay, Saltspring Island

Built between 1880 and 1885, St Paul's is Saltspring Island's first church.  Several of the features of this church are from Cowichan Bay's "Butter Church," including the bell, the windows and the door.  The island is dotted with Gothic churches on a similarly small scale, although this is the only "stone" church.  I say "stone" because the exterior is composed of a faux-stone cladding that was added in 1973.  Presumably, the original facing was wooden, while now the "stone" is highly convincing from a distance but less-so from up close, as seen below.  Regardless, this is an excellent example of a small British Columbia church in the Gothic style.

Poll Results

We asked you which house you preferred, Auchmar in Hamilton, or Ruthven in Cayuga and 80% of readers prefer the Gothic Auchmar!  While both are incredibly beautiful in their own right, it seems as though, in this case at least, our readers much prefer the Gothic style over the Classical.

Thanks for voting and be sure to join us again soon!

Above: Plaster boss in the main entrance hall at Auchmar

New Poll: Which house do you like best?

Recently we visited two incredible houses and we want to know which you like best.  The two houses are the Gothic Auchmar in Hamilton and the Classical Ruthven in Cayuga.

We love them both for different reasons, but we're curious to find out which style our readers prefer.

Let us know!  Cast your vote on the left sidebar of the blog!

Ruthven

Last Friday we visited two large, but very different houses - the first was the Gothic manor, Auchmar, in Hamilton and the second was the Classical mansion, Ruthven in Cayuga, Ontario.

This large estate was built for David Thompson in 1845-1847 in a stately Classical style.  The house faces the river and is framed by a wooden temple front of the Doric order with a few flourishes.  Regular and square in plan, on both the exterior and the interior, Ruthven is completely up to date with upper class houses of the time in both Canada and in England.

The interior is elaborately decorated with Classical plaster moldings  and, most impressively, a spiraling central staircase.

The entire home is remarkably well-preserved and maintained as it is a National Historic Site - one that can be visited and toured by the public.  This is a definite must-see for anyone interested in 19th-century architecture in Ontario.