Chatham-Kent Day 1: A Fine Day for Churching!

Today marked the start of the Ontario Heritage Conference in Ridgetown, Ontario. En Route Malcolm and I decided to take in a couple of churches. First on the list was Highgate United Church. Amazingly we were able to get inside the church...and what a doozie! The sanctuary boasts a beautiful stained glass dome, arced seating and a huge pulpit platform. The real gem of the church is in the basement though - an immaculately preserved Akron Plan - complete with original folding doors!

In our opinion this is without a doubt the best preserved Akron Plan in Ontario (and perhaps in Canada)!

Next we stopped off at Morpeth United Church, 1877, which is a most unusual building with a very unexpected massing - quite a nice stop! Unfortunately we could not get inside this one, but we haven't given up yet - I am in the C-K area for the next 5 days and will keep trying - I bet it has an amazing open-timber ceiling in there...stay tuned for an update on that bet!

After taking in a few papers we felt a craving for a good church hop. Soon we were off to Dover where we came across St. Thomas Anglican Church, 1875, perhaps one of the cutest Anglican churches I've come across in Ontario! (Really I'm biased; I grew up down the street from the church...nostalgia, what a wonderful thing!)

Tomorrow I present and am scheduled to have approx. 50 people attend my session - hopefully all will go well and everyone will enjoy learning about Henry Langley and T.J. Rutley. Once the papers are over we'll be out searching for more C-K churches...check back in later for my Chatham-Kent posts...until then, enjoy the new building of the week!

Ontario Heritage Conference this Week

This week both Malcolm and Candace will be presenting papers at the 2010 Ontario Heritage Conference in Chatham-Kent.

Malcolm will present, "Architectural Expressions of Denominational Differences in Chatham Churches", on Friday June 11th at 2pm.

Candace will be presenting, "From Provincial to Local Significance: Henry Langley and T.J. Rutley, Two Influential Architects in Chatham-Kent", on Saturday June 12th at 11am.

The conference is scheduled to have several keynote speakers, workshops, and lots of great papers. For more info. about the conference check out: http://www.heritageconferencechathamkent.com/

Nova Scotia Day 7: Eighteenth-century Nova Scotia

Throughout the trip, we've been updating you on all of the nineteenth-century buildings that we've been visiting, but yesterday, we were lucky enough to visit three eighteenth-century buildings AND even more fortunately, we were able to get inside two of them!  First was St Mary's Anglican, Auburn of 1790 which is what we might expect of a small eighteenth-century church; a James Gibbs-inspired preaching box complete with a Gibbsian spire and classical details.

Above: St Mary's Anglican, Auburn 1790

The interior is still in excellent shape and still retains its lovely gallery and lath and plaster barrel vault.  More on this spectacular building next week in one of our building profiles.  Thanks again to Roseann who kindly let us into the church and who gave us some wonderful background information.

 Above: the interior of St Mary's Auburn, looking west

After this, we went to Middleton to check out Old Holy Trinity Church of 1789.  We were intrigued by the authenticity of the Gothic details as its date would put it at one of the earliest (if not the earliest) examples of the Gothic style in Canada.

 Above: Old Holy Trinity, Middleton 1789

Thanks to Brian, we were able to enter the church to check it out and to look for proof about the authenticity of the pointed windows on the facade.  The interior has been well kept and we were able to determine that the Gothic windows were, in fact, original!  Quite a find!  The nave has been nicely restored as seen below.  We will also feature this building in a more detailed building profile some time in the near future.

  Above: the nave of Old Holy Trinity looking east

As icing on the cake, we were also able to see Old St Edwards Church in Clementsport of 1797.  This classically-inspired church was a real beauty including a south-side pedimented entrance and Palladian eastern window, though sadly we couldn't get in.

  Above: Old St Edwards Church, Clementsport 1797

It was a great day for very old buildings and also an excellent way to wrap up our visit to Nova Scotia.  All in all we visited just over 50 buildings in seven days, so we will be filling you in on the rest of our finds in the next little while.

Nova Scotia Day 6: St. Malcolm-in-the-Fields...

Today was another excellent day for a building hop. We bid a fond farewell to Lunenburg and headed west for the southern coastal towns. Our greatest accomplishment today was getting inside Holy Trinity Anglican, Jordan Falls - with its Sompting-inspired tower and open-timber roof it's a great architectural find!


(Left: Trinity Anglican, exterior)
(Right: Trinity Anglican, interior)




Some further highlights include the Barrington Meeting House of 1765 (which was unfortunately locked, though it looked great when we were peeking through the windows) and the Courthouse in Liverpool of 1854 which featured nicely executed Doric elements in wood.

Above: The wooden Doric entablature at the Liverpool Courthouse

Tomorrow we (sadly) leave the south shore behind but look forward to exploring some of the north shore before heading back to the airport in Halifax tomorrow night.  We'll give you the final buildings-visited-count of the overall trip after we wrap up tomorrow, but we will tell you that today was a jam-packed day that pushed our total building count through the roof.  Until then, here's one last taste of the south shore (for now): the lighthouse marking the entrance to Lunenburg Harbour.

 

Nova Scotia Day 5: A Day on the Atlantic

Today we took some time to explore some of the sights that Lunenburg had to offer. If you are ever in Lunenburg, we highly recommend the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic which was both our spectacular venue for the SSAC conference and an excellent museum to visit. We were able to learn about the fishing industry and its deep roots in the town of Lunenburg as well as about how fishing boats and crews traditionally worked. The museum has a few former shipping boats including a trawler and a schooner that you can explore and it is also the current home of the Bluenose II.

Later on in the day, we visited some more churches along the coast and stopped at seven, including one with an all wooden interior - amazing! We also came across a floating bell cote and even a floating tower. We're pretty sure that these were removed, then haphazardly replaced when the vinyl siding was put on each church. Whatever the reason, these were very strange-looking:

The highlight of the day for us was definitely our afternoon spent  whale watching.  Candace and I were fortunate to have the sunniest, warmest day to date for our trip and we were ready for anything.  We'd heard that the previous day's trip hadn't had any luck, but fortunately, the marine life knew that we were waiting for them.Because, while on the trip, we saw Minke whales.......dolphins...... and a whole lot of seals!  Incredible!

Nova Scotia Day 4: Conference and Coves

This morning began with some excellent papers by three Malcolmites and even the chief himself. Between Barry, Candace, Peter and Malcolm, the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were
Above: Candace, our new Ontario Rep. embraces her nautical side

thoroughly explored. In addition to this, we had two papers discussing Saskatchewan churches - with all of these presentations, a good portion of English-speaking Canada was covered. Well done everyone, it was an interesting and informative morning!


Further congratulations are in order as this afternoon, Candace was elected as the SSAC's Ontario representative, Barry was voted in as one of the Vice Presidents and Peter was voted in as President of the SSAC. Way to go team - don't screw it up!

Above: New VP and Phyllis Lambert Prize winner

Above: Our new President looking very dapper

Before dinner, we were able to squeeze in visits to six buildings in several cove towns. Some were nicer than others, thanks in no small part due to the outbreak of vinyl cladding plaguing Nova Scotia.... For the most part, today, we came across two-cell plans (though some of the chancels are not original) with an off-centred Western tower. Again, we saw another excellent open timber roof at St Michael and All Angels, Petite Riviere of 1886.

Above: St Micheal and All Angels, Petite Riviere 1886

Interestingly, we also found a pristine Anglican church that would have done the Ecclesiologists proud. I say interestingly because the church was not built in the mid 19th century, but rather in 1903!

Above: St John the Evangelist, La Have Island 1903

After a great day we all enjoyed the banquet where we feasted on local lobsters. Delicious!





Above: Malcolm toasting his little red friend while Jess gets ready to start crackin'!

Nova Scotia Day 3: The Conference Begins...

...and begin with a bang it did! Jess kicked off the 37th Annual Conference of The Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada by chairing the opening session and presenting a brilliant paper on domestic pattern books from the 19th century and how they were used in Port Hope, Ontario. The paper was well-received - nice work Jess! (Tomorrow is my turn...the nerves are kickin' in).

Later in the day we decided to take off and check out the local churches. We thoroughly photographed Lunenburg last year when we were in NS, so we decided to explore the surrounding towns where we found some amazing open timber roofs and some architectural peculiarities. First the open timber - Pugin would be so proud of Nova Scotia - so much wood and amazing craftsmanship, likely thanks in part to the ship-building industry in the Maritimes.

 Above: Detail of the hammer-beam roof of Lutheran Church,  La Have 1901

Then we came across the Catholic Church, St. Joseph's (1889), which oddly looked like an Anglican building with additions that made an unexpected composition.

 

 Above: St Joseph's Roman Catholic, Bridgewater 1889

On our way back to Lunenburg we made our last stop at Maitland to see Christ Church (1866), which was extremely picturesque; however, the shingle tower is a later addition to the main body, which has a unique board-and-batten finish where the battens overlap the window mouldings.

 Above: Christ Church Anglican, Maitland 1866

We were soon rained out by the unpredictable NS weather, so we returned to Lunenburg for dinner and then took in a lecture about the reconstruction of St. John's Church, Lunenburg - very interesting. It's been a full day of talks, buildings and photography, but overall it was extremely satisfying!

Left: St John's Anglican, Lunenburg