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

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!