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Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 25
Gothic Revival in Canadian Architecture
by Mathilde Brosseau
The Romantic Gothic Revival
In Canada, the history of Gothic Revival begins in 1811, when
Governor James Craig set up a commission to establish the plans for a
new Parliament building in Quebec City.1 The proposals
received included those of a British architect named Jeffry Wyatt, who
submitted an ambitious project in the style of Gothic Revival. The plans
show a building inspired by medieval castles, as indicated by the
crenelated parapets and the facades punctuated by polygonal
turrets (Fig. 1). Other Neo-Gothic features naturally include the great
pointed arches of the porch and the line of windows crowned by the
medieval drip moulding typical of the style. Despite these specifically
medieval features, the arrangement of masses is in strict compliance
with the principles of symmetry and two-dimensional surfaces, both being
characteristic of 18th century architectural traditions.
As if to stress the idea that the Neo-Gothic style was nothing more
than an interchangeable stylistic dressing, the same architect
submitted another project maintaining the same scheme of composition and
identical proportions, but with the elevations decorated this time
according to the classical repertoire (Fig. 2). The composition of the
Parliament of Quebec by Jeffry Wyatt thus illustrates a characteristic
which was to become a constant among the first Canadian buildings
inspired by the Gothic Revival — the addition of Gothic
embellishments to a traditional scheme. The British origin of the
designer of this project, Jeffry Wyatt, appears to be significant.
Compositions of this kind, so alien to native Canadian traditions of the
time, were quite popular in contemporary England. Interest in medieval
subjects had been growing in that country since the beginning of
the 18th century, particularly among wealthy dilettantes and
antiquarians imbued with historicism. Manifestations of this state of
mind included the creation of the famous Fonthill Abbey, the pseudo-abbey
built for the ultra-wealthy William Beckford between 1796 and 1807
by the architect James Wyatt. Moreover, this was the uncle of Jeffry
Wyatt who specialized in the reconstruction of medieval castles and
familiarized his nephew with the Gothic repertoire.2 Probably
because of budget restrictions, this initial attempt to implant a
fashion, which was then strictly British, did not see the light of day
in Quebec City. The project nevertheless points out the origin of the
style and the country from which each new development would later spring
forth. It thus foreshadows the line of dependence that was to be
established between England and its Canadian colony throughout the
evolution of the Gothic Revival.
Religious Architecture
The first great manifestations of the Gothic Revival did not appear in
Canadian construction until the 1820s. Ironically, the new style made
its first striking appearance in the religious architecture of Quebec,
where deeply rooted native traditions did not seem to be threatened by
the appearance of foreign fashions. In 1824, the Montreal Congregation
of Saint Sulpice decided to build a new church on a scale then
unequalled in North America. With this in mind, they retained the
services of James O'Donnell, an Irish architect emigrated to New York.
He gave them a new Gothic church inspired by the Commissioners Churches
of England. The latter were an imposing group of churches built from
1818 to 1835 as a result of a bill passed in the British Parliament to
provide adequate places of worship in the new industrial areas. Their
basic plan remains rectangular (without apse or transept) like that of
the Reform churches and their Gothic Revival appearance applies only to
the outer walls without modifying the scheme of
articulation.3 Consequently, Notre-Dame is a church with
trail proportions and Gothic features which, with their immaterial
character and horizontal grid arrangement, appear subordinate to the
regularity of composition (Fig. 3). Even the upward sweep of the gable
on the main fa�ade is made ineffectual by a crenelated parapet between
the two end towers.
The construction of Notre-Dame had quite a strong impact on Quebec
architectural circles; it even inspired a series of imitations, of which
the best-known example is the church of Sainte Anne-de-la-P�rade built
from 1855 to 1869 by Casimir Coursol4 (Fig. 4). The dual
tower formula, which was not unprecedented in Quebec religious
architecture, became a long-standing model for grand-scale urban Gothic
Revival churches.5
Some twenty years after the construction of Notre-Dame it was the turn
of the Protestant churches located in Quebec City to undergo the
influence of the Commissioners Churches. Three large Protestant
denominations (Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist), as well as the
Catholic confession, each decided to erect a Gothic Revival urban
church. Thus it was that in 1848 a type of church, already produced by
certain British architects such as Francis Goodwin during the
construction of the Commissioners Churches in the 1820s, was chosen by
the prolific architect Edward Staveley when commissioned to build the
New Wesleyan Methodist Church on Saint Stanislas Street. Often designed for
working class towns, these churches were meant to combine the principles
of efficiency and economy, i.e., to hold the greatest number of
worshippers for the lowest cost. These were the Gable Churches, named
after the prominent effect of the angle of the great gable on the west
fa�ade.6 The ornamental aspect of Gothic design still plays
an important r�le, as witnessed by the series of false buttresses
running along the building and projecting beyond the summit in as many
miniaturized spires (Fig. 5). The Scottish Presbyterians had a Gothic
Revival church built by the architect Wells. It too is an offshoot of
the Commissioners Churches; its floor plan is rectangular and its great
Gothic windows arranged in two series interrupted by a horizontal impost
reveal the presence of U-shaped interior galleries attached precisely
to that strip7 (Fig. 6).
The afore-mentioned Protestant churches seem foreign to native
architectural traditions. However, Catholic churches include several
examples of modification of certain traditional types under the
influence of the new style. Saint Sulpice, built about 1832, is
representative of the Gothic Revival influence on churches that observe
the articulation and proportion of the Conefroy plan. Named after its
designer, Father Pierre Conefroy (1752-1816), this plan had been
conceived as a return to the type of church established under Msgr. de
Laval in order to counter the effects, considered injurious, of English
immigration into the diocese of Montreal since the conquest.8
Saint Sulpice reproduces its balanced proportions, the very steep roof,
the bell-tower position slightly back from the fa�ade and the
projecting apse. But the Gothic Revival influence is visible in the design of
the bays, which nevertheless include designs of classical inspiration
(Fig. 7).
In the Maritimes too, the Gothic Revival was confronted with an
established tradition. This developed when the Loyalists arrived,
orienting architecture toward the neo-classical tradition based on
harmonious proportions, rules of symmetry and skilled arrangement of
classical detail. In 1824, in the full vigour of this tradition,
widespread interest was attracted by the sudden appearance of an
ambitious Gothic Revival project — Trinity Church in Saint John,
N.B., which was built according to the plan of Scottish architect John
Cunningham9 (Fig. 8). Its popular name — Stone Church
— indicates the somewhat rare use of stone in a
region where timber was found in abundance and stood up better to
temperature differences. The use of stone would also appear to be a
deliberate attempt to heighten the resemblance to English medieval
churches. Its stonework done by Scottish masons is remarkable for the
time; the regular courses of trimmed quarry stone reveal great skill, as
does the treatment of Gothic detail: a pointed obtuse arch, elegant
decorative bay tracery and a tower topped with stylized finials.
However, despite a deliberate effort to delve into the Gothic
repertoire, the design still expresses the spirit of the end of the 18th
century through its very compact composition of masses, its low gable
slope partly concealed by the crenelated parapet and, finally, its
triangular pediment effect at the top of the frontal.
Just as Trinity Church demonstrates the intrusion of Gothic Revival in
the architectural domain reserved to professional architects, the
Bayhead Church in Nova Scotia is typical of the later development of the
vernacular style in the Atlantic Provinces (Fig. 9). This type of church
is derived from the meeting houses of New England, with its clapboard
siding and rectangular plan with the main entry in the centre of the two
narrower fa�ades. The only touch of Gothic Revival is seen in the shape
of the windows, which nevertheless retain the sash arrangement which is
contrary to the Neo-Gothic spirit. Its proportions retain a horizontal
tendency, the gable slope remains low and certain clasical details
diminish the effect of the Gothic style on its composition. This kind of
church combining the remains of the tradition of the latter part of the
18th century with a taste for the new Gothic Revival fashion seems to
have coexisted with the more avant-garde manifestations of Gothic
Revival. The Canadian Inventory of Historic Building catalogue includes
such churches built until late in the 1860s (Fig. 10).
In the 1840s one of the most charming and original interpretations of
the Gothic Revival began in the Maritimes. While preserving the
simplicity of articulation of the early 19th century church, with its
"rectangular box" plan and proportions always calculated to obtain a
harmonious balance, the village and country church-builder began to use
wood to reproduce (and sometimes even reinvent) the highly picturesque
details of the Gothic repertoire. It includes miniature turrets,
pinnacles, machicolated effects, finials, buttresses and Gothic bays
with elegant tracery in three-dimensional shapes reproducing the effect
of motifs sculpted in stone. This version of the style was appropriately
named Carpenter's Gothic. As early as 1840, Saint Johns Church in
Lunenburg, N.S. (Fig. 11) offers a perfect example of this very romantic
approach to Gothic Revival that was to be perpetuated in all the
Atlantic provinces (perhaps with greater austerity in
Newfoundland) until the 1870s.10 Enthusiasm for this
interpretation of Gothic Revival seems to have been shared by many
religious denominations, since churches of this kind are found among
Anglicans, Catholics, Baptists and Methodists (Figs. 11, 12, 13, 14).
During the first decade of the 19th century, Ontario was behind the
Atlantic provinces and Quebec in terms of population increase and
economic growth but rapidly caught up with them beginning in the 1840s.
It is therefore understandable that Ontario did not, in the 1830s or
1840s, produce any works of Gothic Revival as imposing as Notre-Dame in
Montreal, or even Trinity Church in Saint John's, N.B. However, Gothic
Revival did appear in Ontario, combined with the tradition established
by the Loyalists, just as it did in the Atlantic provinces. St. James
Church in Maitland, for example, reveals the new style through details,
pointed windows and crenelation applied to a general plan that complies
with the spirit and proportion of the late 18th century vernacular
tradition (Fig. 15). The masonry, which was used more commonly than in
the Atlantic provinces, gave such churches a more austere and sturdy
quality.
At a time when Gothic Revival was coming to the forefront in the east,
the Prairie provinces remained a vast untouched region where the
presence of the white man was limited to employees of powerful fur trade
companies and missionaries dedicated to conversion of the Indians. The
harsh living conditions, lack of skilled labour and almost total absence
of a native architectural tradition were factors that would influence
building construction until the end of the 19th century, resulting in
extreme plainness and often naive handling of architectural styles.
Gothic Revival appeared there later than in the east and in a sporadic
manner. Moreover, its use on the Prairies is limited to churches, where
it is more a symbol of Christianity than an indication of a specific
architectural style. However, despite basic differences, the first
manifestations of the style are similar to those of the 1820s and
1830s in the east, in that the intellectual process is analogous. As in
the east, this process proceeds from the known to the unknown —
beginning with a traditional scheme based on the cultural heritage of
the new settlers, to which Neo-Gothic details were added.
The oldest stone church on the Prairies, St. Andrew's-on-the-Red, was
built in 1849 for the Scottish settlers established by Lord Selkirk on
the banks of the Red River; it is a good example of the way in which
Gothic Revival came to these remote lands.11 Its builder,
William Cochrane, deliberately chose an austere building limited to a
plan drawn from a distant architectural past
— a rectangle dominated by a square tower at the front (Fig. 16).
Its Neo-Gothic features are reduced to their simplest expression:
pointed doors and windows. In works of this type, the masonry dominates
the entire composition. Such buildings are the most sophisticated
architectural works to be found on the Prairies in this period.
Moreover, St. Andrew's-on-the-Red seems to be a type of church that was
perpetuated for rather a long time; in 1860, St. Clement's Church in
Selkirk was built along the same lines (Fig. 17). This hybrid Gothic
Revival style of church may even be said to continue without appreciable
change until the turn of the century. Many wooden churches follow its
example, such as the one in Star City, Saskatchewan, with its humble
crenelated tower standing against the vast prairie sky (Fig. 18). If the
tower is removed from this arrangement, there remains only the
rectangular box and gable roof typical of many small churches on the
Prairies.
In the Canadian West and particularly in Alberta and British Columbia
where sufficiently wooded regions are found, log construction was often
used even as late as the turn of the century. A horizontal arrangement
was usually used and the logs were generally assembled by dovetail
joints. There is one imposing exception: Christ Church in Millarville,
Alberta (Fig. 19). Its footed post construction shows the original
contribution of European immigrants in these newly cleared regions. It
was indeed a German carpenter and contractor, Charles Shack, who
decided to use this building method, which was unusual at the
time.12 Other immigrants endeavoured to affirm their ethnic
identity by reproducing church forms that were familiar in their
homelands. Thus the Ukrainian Catholic church in Sandy Lake, Manitoba
proclaims its ethnic character with graceful bulbous bell-towers. On the
other hand, its Christian identity is shown by Gothic Revival
fenestration (Fig. 20).
Domestic Architecture
We have to return to the east to discover how this style originated in
dwellings. As with religious architecture, the tradition brought into
Ontario and the Atlantic provinces by the Loyalists had
established a type of house with a simplicity and balance that satisfied
popular needs and tastes. The typical dwelling had one-and-a-half
floors, with a central layout and a low gable roof. The first sign of
Gothic Revival had little effect on this basic scheme; they took the
form of a simple, small gable added above the central door with a
decorative pointed window providing light to the second floor hall.
These gables were sometimes embellished with a fretted fascia board in a
timid expression of the picturesque aspect of the style and the windows
often used the drip moulding of medieval origin. These first examples
retain the horizontal proportions that were characteristic of the
beginning of the 19th century (Fig. 21). Moreover, Gothic Revival
details coexisted with classical details for a long time. The latter
aspect is more visible in the houses of the Atlantic provinces, where
many examples of the Gothic style still retain eaves ending in cornices,
corner-boards fashioned as pilasters and a central door surrounded by a
classical frame (Fig. 22).
In Ontario, this type of house was primarily distinguished from that of
the Atlantic provinces by the material: stone or brick instead of
clapboard. Classical detail is less abundant, but the oldest examples of
Gothic Revival nevertheless retain the earthbound appearance of early
19th century dwellings and the very low slope of the central gable
recalling the classical triangular pediment (Fig. 23).
in Ontario, where the Gothic Revival had more influence than anywhere
else in Canada, the 1830s witnessed the appearance of Neo-Gothic
features in another version of the Neo-Classical house that was
primarily built in small towns. This was dubbed the Ontario Cottage,
although the same type of building is found in other British colonies,
where it was apparently introduced by discharged British
soldiers.13 It was usually a house with one-and-a-half
stories, a square plan, three bays on the main fa�ade and a pavilion
roof. The influence of the Gothic Revival is seen in the appearance of a
small central gable with a fretted fascia board highlighting a Gothic
window; sometimes the shape of the other windows and the door is also
modified. In 1864, the Canadian Farmer (one of the first
Canadian periodicals to include an architectural section) presented a
similar composition to its readers; in 1873, the same building was again
included at the general request of customers.14 This confirms
the longevity of this type of design in Ontario (Fig. 24).
In the Atlantic provinces, however, Gothic Revival dwellings with
pavilion roofs are found only exceptionally. There are nevertheless a
few examples of this version with highly refined details ranking them
among the most charming interpretations of Gothic Revival in this region
of Canada. The house illustrated in Figure 25, with its very generous
proportions, central plan and graceful pavilion roof, recalls the proud
bearing of certain grand residences drawn from the 18th century
tradition.
In Quebec, the Gothic Revival remains a minor factor in domestic
architecture. There are two reasons for this. The style was associated
with England from the outset and did not give rise to the patriotic
enthusiasm found in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces. In addition,
when Gothic Revival was taking on sizeable proportions elsewhere, the
traditional Quebec house was going through a period of splendid
vitality. This tradition based on two centuries of evolution was
certainly not about to disappear in favour of a foreign style. It thus
seems natural that the Gothic Revival showed up in the domestic sector
primarily in the Eastern Townships, which were settled in the 20th
century by a majority of anglophone immigrants from the United States.
As a general rule, examples of Gothic Revival in this area are brick or
clapboard dwellings related to the type derived from the Loyalist
house. The house at 40 G�rin-Lajoie Street in Coaticook shows how richly
decorative this type of architecture can become when executed by skilled
hands (Fig. 26).
Public Architecture
Gothic Revival in Quebec is therefore not conspicuous in the number of
buildings it influenced (at least during this romantic phase). However,
the first school in Canada to reflect the Gothic Revival is found there.
This building was erected in 1822 in an attempt to establish in Quebec
City the British system of National Schools, a charitable institution
devoted to the education of orphans.15 Nestled at the bottom
of the slope on rue d'Auteull, this building retained the conservative
articulation of space found in Quebec urban architecture at the
beginning of the 20th century, but proclaimed its adherence to the
Gothic style (recommended for all National Schools) by means of Tudor
fenestration with medieval drip mouldings, crenelations on the roof and
a porch with an elegant pointed window (Fig. 27).
The design for the Quebec Parliament provided a sort of introduction to
the first wave of Gothic Revival buildings in Canada. Its example again
jumped to the forefront in the analysis of the first Canadian public
buildings influenced by the Gothic Revival. The first was a courthouse
erected in London, Ontario by a British
architect, John Ewart.16 Although the plan was much less
complicated, the Ewart design shows spiritual ties with the composition
of Wyatt — the same symmetrical main volume terminating in
crenelated parapets (Fig. 28). In this case, the octagonal towers are
more imposing than in the Wyatt design, where they were limited to small
decorative protrusions; their presence at the four corners of the
building reinforces the impression of power already suggested in the
scheme of composition. In this particularly conservative sector, Gothic
Revival did not make rapid progress. However, it is interesting to note
that this particular aspect of the Gothic Revival, known as Castellated
Gothic (or Castle Gothic) being particularly suitable as a symbol of the
power of the law and the rigour of its principles, also dominated the
design of two other courthouses in Ontario — the Wellington County
Courthouse built in Guelph in 1841 (Fig. 29) and the Halton County
Courthouse erected in Milton in 1854 by the firm Clark and
Murray.17
The beginnings of Gothic Revival in various regions of Canada have been
discussed in this first chapter. The first manifestations reflect a
romantic approach. The outward signs of the Gothic style are used to
represent the ideas it symbolizes: the strength and power of the
judicial system in the case of the castle courthouses, the permanence
of Christianity for churches (since the Gothic style left its mark in
this area more than in any other) and attachment to the mother country,
since England was seen at the time as the original source of the style.
However, the various illustrated examples also seem disparate because of
the very immensity of Canada. The main lines of development do not share
a common climate, geographical location or history. In the eastern
regions of the country, Gothic features are added to buildings derived
from the tradition of the late 18th century. In the west, they are used
to embellish buildings with a general appearance owing as much to the
harsh living conditions as to architectural traditions, as well as to
the spirit of initiative of the new settlers. But the romantic side of
these various examples of the style, often built as much as 80 years
apart, is accompanied by ignorance of structural principles and a timid
use of the formal repertoire specific to this medieval style.
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