Places of Worship

Some of you know that I spent last summer traveling around much of the 519 area code looking for places of worship - either current or past. I did this as part of the Ontario Heritage Trust’s (OHT) Places of Worship Inventory, which is basically a fancy way of saying that the OHT wanted to know how many places of worship were in the province. In addition, they wanted to document the heritage that these buildings have. Often a place of worship was the first public building established in communities, after private homes. They were often also the first buildings erected with the purpose of permanence in mind. As such, they act as pieces of architectural heritage and provide insight into the wealth and prosperity of the community that built them. Some of these indicators were building materials and the architectural styles employed.

Most of my examples work best with churches, as Christian houses of worship were usually the first established in south-western Ontario, and the most common type that I came across.

Building Material:
Often the first place of worship for a particular congregation was in a private home or barn.
The first purpose built building was often a wood-sided frame church. These often burned, meaning a brick or stone church replaced it. In some cases, I was able to find the wood-sided frame churches still in existence. When the wood-sided church still existed, it offered a glimpse into the wealth of the congregation when the church was first erected. Sometimes it’s a very simple, small church, but other times it’s a large, gothic revival church with a tall bell tower, lancet arched windows, revealing that the congregation was large and wealthy enough to afford such an elaborate church.
When the wood-sided churches burned, they would usually be replaced by brick or stone. Often the region of the church determined which was used. For example, in St. Marys, most of the churches are stone, as that was widely available. Often yellow brick was the popular and widely available brick, so it was used – or if a congregation wanted to demonstrate its wealth, red brick was brought in, to make that church stand out. (There were of course instances of yellow bricked churches being painted red.)
Some of the wealthiest congregations would use exotic stone, not readily accessible in the area, to demonstrate to the larger community just how much money its members had.

Architectural Style:
Churches ranged in style – I found examples of gothic revival, Romanesque revival, those with Orthodox influences, and of course modern. The most common types I came across were by far gothic examples and the ever ‘lovely’ modern examples.
Beyond the overarching styles, there were also smaller details to reveal the wealth and prosperity of the members. On brick churches, there were various instances of bonds used – stretcher (standard) bond, English Common bond, or Flemish bond. The first was the least expensive, and the last the most. Most churches were either in standard, or English Common bond, though there was at least one church that I found that had examples of all three.
This particular church made me laugh, in a nerdly way I suppose, as most people likely wouldn’t notice it (can’t say I blame them, as I wouldn’t have, except I was paid to notice!) It was a relatively small church, built with gothic revival influences. On two faces of the church – essentially the front faces – Flemish bond was used. Let’s people see at first glance that the members had some money. If you examine the other two sides though, you’ll quickly see that they wanted to appear to have money, or else had some, but not enough – these other two sides are done in English Common Bond. The standard bond is found on the additions, on both the front and the back. I wasn’t able to determine when the additions were put on – but it was either at a time when the congregation didn’t have a lot of extra money, or at a time when appearances were no longer necessary. I was impressed when I saw the first face of this particular church, as it was in a small community and I didn’t expect to see the Flemish bond. By the time I walked around it completely though, as I said, I was laughing to myself.

Modern churches, if you didn’t pick up on it, were by far my least favourite. Anything built 1950 or later was usually pretty unexciting. Brick colours were no longer just yellow or red – now they were weird colours like bright baby blue. The shapes were strange as well – from nice rectangular houses of worship to octagons, with strange rooflines. (The rooflines were my nemesis, as I had to draw the church from how it would be viewed from above. As such, the rectangular churches were by far my favourite!)

One of the other things that I was required to do in my assessment of the various places of worship was to determine if the building had ever housed a different denomination. This was most often a cause of concern for United Churches. The United Church was found in 1925, when Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregationalist churches came together to form one congregation. Often a community would have both a Presbyterian and a Methodist church – and building would be taken over by the United congregation. Usually there was a date stone that indicated what the original congregation had been – but sometimes there wasn’t, requiring me to determine the previous congregation based on the architectural styles. I’m proud to say that by the end of the summer I could do this, but I was very intimidated by it at first! Explaining the differences would require an even longer blog and some pictures – so suffice it to say that it was usually the Presbyterian churches that were gothic in style while the Methodist churches tended toward the rounded arched windows of the Romanesque revival tradition.

The last element that I’ll talk about had to do with the present use of the building – whether it was still used for religious purposes, if it had been converted to residential or business use, or if it was simply abandoned. Some churches had been converted to restaurants – so it was very easy for me to see the interior – and I was welcomed into a residence and was pleased to discover that many of the interior architectural elements had been preserved. The OHT publication, Heritage Matters, from September 2008 actually focuses on adaptive reuse of places of worship. For anyone still reading by this point and who’s curious to learn a little more, check it out! I’m proud to say that I took the photo of The Church Restaurant in Stratford, found on page 6.