Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 25

Gothic Revival in Canadian Architecture

by Mathilde Brosseau

The Rationalistic and Ecclesiological Gothic Revival

The Gothic Revival was to retain an evocative aspect throughout its evolution. Toward the middle of the 19th century, the didactic efforts of English theorists led to the replacement of the romantic aspect with a concern for archaeological fidelity and a desire for a systematic exploration of the formal repertoire and the potential of structural rationalism contained in the style. Our analysis will concentrate on churches, since they demonstrate this new attitude better than any other type of building. Nevertheless, we will see that domestic architecture participated in its own way in the evolution of the style; by developing an interest in imitating the various periods of the Gothic era, it also showed interest in structural rationalism in accepting the influence of the American theorist Andrew Downing. Finally, as the style matured, the influence of the Gothic Revival grew in the institutional sector.

Religious Architecture

To measure the progress from the first manifestation of the Gothic Revival to another type of construction marked by a concern for archaeological fidelity and structural rationalism, we should look at the Anglican Cathedral of Fredericton, Christ Church Cathedral. It was built from 1846 to 1853 by British architect Frank Wills and William Butterfield in collaboration with the first Anglican Bishop of Fredericton, John Medley¹ (Fig. 30). Its design is inspired by the principles propounded by a group of English theology graduates of Cambridge who joined together in a society called the Cambridge Camden Society (The Ecclesiological Society from 1846 onward), which had been fomenting a veritable revolution in religious architecture since 1839. Firstly, this building shows an effort to reproduce a specific model of the decorative Gothic period (14th century, the period of predilection for the Cambridge Camden Society), namely St. Mary's Church in Snettisham, Norfolk, England. The Fredericton Cathedral reproduces its characteristic elements such as the tripartite porch and the basic fenestration. On the other hand, the chancel and transept were designed in harmony with the body of the building but without a specific model, since they had not survived at St. Mary's.

Since the Reformation, the interior layout of Protestant churches gave the place of honour to the preacher, whom all were to see and hear. This practice based on the essential role of the Word in the religious rite had led to the elimination of the chancel, the adoption of a unified rectangular plan and the addition of upper galleries.² In keeping with the doctrines of the Cambridge Camden Society, the Fredericton Cathedral returns to the typical arrangement of medieval Catholic churches, i.e., a plan based on a nave flanked by aisles (which appear mainly in large-scale churches) and oriented toward the choir, which once again becomes the determining factor in the overall plan. However, it is particularly interesting to see that each element in the plan is expressed in the exterior composition; thus the Fredericton Cathedral has a chancel that rises to the same height as the nave and is covered by a separate roof, as are aisles and the entrance porch.

Here then is an indication of the effect of structural rationalism, which was clearly stated for the first time in the works of the greatest apostle of the return to the Middle Ages, the British architect Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, and then circulated with a doctrinarian zeal by the Cambridge Camden Society.³ In accordance with this basic doctrine, the decorative details, far from being added to the building like those inspired by a romantic conception of Gothic Revival, are now an integral part of the building structure. For example, the buttresses are no longer built at regular intervals along the walls; they appear at essential points, such as the corners of the chancel, that require additional support and their sturdy appearance reveals their supporting function. We are a long way from details such as the turret on the Parliament of Quebec (Fig. 1) — frail, miniaturized elements that can only be considered additions to the basic structure.

The Cathedral of Fredericton is therefore an expression of a radical change in the perception of Gothic Revival. The principles governing its composition were rapidly disseminated by its principal architect Frank Wills and a number of other architects before creeping into vernacular architecture.

Before examining illustrations of this new departure in the Gothic Revival, it is important to understand how the architectural principles put forward in England in the early 1840s came to have such a rapid effect on religious architecture in Canada. If it had not been for the far-reaching influence of the Cambridge Camden Society, this situation would never have occurred.⁴ This Society was not content to simply expound among its members an architectural theory that was partially founded on a concern for religious symbolism. In 1841, it laid the foundation for its influence by creating its review The Ecclesiologist, which disseminated advice and criticism among church builders. Over the next few years, church construction in the British colonies, particularly in Canada, was often dealt with in the chronicles of the review. Thus the construction of the Fredericton Cathedral was covered by various articles reporting on the changes made to the original composition, the progress of the work and the final result.⁵ In response to numerous requests from the four corners of the British Empire, the Society even sent to the colonies scale drawings of certain medieval churches for reproduction purposes.⁶

The influence of the Cambridge Camden Society was itself part of the broader phenomenon of the evangelical movement that led to a revival of the missionary spirit toward the end of the 18th century. Throughout the 19th century, many British ministers familiar with the new Anglican liturgy came to Canada and disseminated it in the new churches they had built in their own dioceses. Bishop John Medley is a perfect example, moreover, in that he had already formed in Exeter a provincial affiliate of the Ecclesiological Society and published in 1841 a work recommended by the Society entitled Elementary Remarks on Church Architecture.

A similar phenomenon occurred in Newfoundland, where the minister William Feild placed the construction of his St. John's Cathedral in the hands of British architect George Gilbert Scott, who was even more knowledgeable than Wills in the field of religious architecture. This project overrides the concept of pure imitation of medieval models in an effort to adapt to the geographic realities of the Atlantic provinces. Scott designed the church as a very imposing edifice, but devoid of all flourishes that were incompatible with the high winds and freezes and thaws of the maritime climate. Its massive proportions and very ample surfaces punctuated by the huge buttresses required to support the stone vaults give it a robust character in keeping with the rugged local topography⁷ (Fig. 31).

The construction of the Federicton Cathedral provided the opportunity to apply the ideas of the Cambridge Camden Society to small church architecture in that the slow progress of the works led Medley to have a chapel built to meet the needs of worshippers until the cathedral was completed. For this purpose, Wills worked out a project based on a 13th century type of British country church. Wills may have been stimulated in his choice by the Society's January 1845 decision to send to the United States a model of this type of church: St. Michael's, Long Stanton⁸ (Fig. 32). The chapel of St. Ann reproduces its general configuration — the arrangement of the west façade with its bell turret and diagonal buttresses, the porch on the south side and the long chancel to the east. However, lack of funds turned Wills away from an integral reproduction of the model; he also used proportions in a very personal manner in order to give his composition a pronounced vertical sweep that was completely absent from the model (Fig. 33).

St. Ann Chapel was to remain almost unique in its kind, since both economic and geographical considerations prevented the construction of stone churches in the diocese of the Atlantic provinces at this time.⁹ It was more important to adapt the doctrines of the Cambridge Camden Society to wooden buildings. Medley and Feild began by asking the Society for models of small wooden medieval churches. For unknown reasons, their request was not answered.¹⁰ Nevertheless, Frank Wills built a church in Maugerville that represents the expression in wood of a medieval model originally designed for stone. This church differs from those in the Carpenter's Gothic tradition by its adherence to the typical porch-nave-chancel plan of the Cambridge Camden Society. The siding was nevertheless clapboard, which interferes by its horizontality with the vertical sweep of Gothic models. Also, the series of false buttresses adds to the picturesque quality of the composition, but its purely ornamental function betrays the principle of structural rationalism fostered by the ecclesiologists (Fig. 34). The churches of Burton and Newcastle, N.B., follow the same pattern.

At nearly the same time, an American landscape gardener, Andrew Downing, provided a valid solution to the problem of adapting wooden siding to the rationalist spirit of the Gothic Revival. The immense popularity of his publication Cottage Architecture (1848) quickly led to the use of board-and-batten siding which gave a vertical orientation to the walls. This method had the additional merit of adhering to the principle of structural rationalism, in that, according to Downing, it gave an outward expression of the main lines of the principal supporting elements in the structure.¹¹ For these reasons, perhaps combined with economic considerations, many churches with vertical board-and-batten siding began to appear in the Atlantic provinces in the 1850s. Some remained attached to the Carpenter's Gothic tradition (Fig. 12) and others kept in mind the teachings of the Cambridge Camden Society (Fig. 35).

Only one man followed through in the search for an original solution to the problem of transposing the ecclesiological doctrines to the wooden churches of the Atlantic provinces — Edward Medley, son of the Anglican Bishop of Fredericton.¹² During his adolescence, Medley had been fortunate in spending his years of architectural apprenticeship in the office of British architect William Butterfield. Constant contact between Butterfield and the Cambridge Camden Society probably allowed the young apprentice to become familiar with the various principles recommended by the Society concerning the architecture of small colonial wooden churches.¹³ He settled upon the idea of the stave churches (Swedish medieval churches) with their enveloping forms (often characterized by the intersection of gable and pavilion roofs) and half-timbered construction that were well in keeping with the architectural leanings of the Cambridge Camden Society.

When he later came to America, Downing familiarized him with the use of board-and-batten siding. Medley therefore combined the enveloping character of the Swedish medieval churches, which he considers well suited to the climatic conditions, with the use of vertical board-and-batten walls. In addition, Medley brought a unique element into the history of Gothic Revival in Canada by choosing to emphasize structural realism through a suggestion of half-timbering with broad vertical planks marking the strong points of the framework in the exterior composition. Several of his works, all built in New Brunswick, may still be seen today. Comparison of the church at McKeen's Corner (1861) with the Apohaqui (1871-72) shows the starting point and culmination of his architectural evolution (Fig. 36, 37). Despite their highly original character, Medley's small churches were too far removed from the vernacular tradition developed by local carpenters and had no substantial impact on the architecture of small towns or villages.

The relation between the religious architecture of Quebec and the Atlantic provinces was established through the career of Frank Wills. In 1848, when funds ran short for the construction of the Fredericton Cathedral, Wills turned up in New York, where he soon became the official architect of the first American affiliate of the Cambridge Camden Society. His work in the United States was both practical, through his many commissions, and theoretical, through the publication of his work entitled Ancient English Ecclesiastical Architecture (1850).¹⁴ However, he still kept up his contacts with Canadian religious circles, since he was given two large commissions in 1854 and 1856, this time in Quebec: the Mount Hermon Cemetery Church on Saint Louis Road in Quebec City and Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal. Both were impressive introductions to the principles of the Cambridge Camden Society in the two urban centres of Quebec.

Before looking at one of these churches, an incident should be related which shows the progress in Quebec architectural circles. When compared to the church of Notre-Dame (Fig. 3), St. Patrick's Church shows a leap forward in the evolution and comprehensions of the Gothic Revival. This church was built for the Irish Catholic population of Montreal. On May 28, 1842, Father Joseph Vincent Quiblier, Head of the Congregation of Saint Sulpice in Montreal, wrote a letter to Pugin, the great theorist of the Gothic Revival in England, to ask him to provide a model of a medieval English church. He wrote:

Nous sommes sur le point de commencer une église de style gothique.... Il serait à propos qu'elle puisse contenir huit ou dix mille personnes desquelles près de la moitié dans les bancs. La sévérité du climat et l'abondance de la neige de nos longs hivers ne permettent pas d'ornements extérieurs à l'exception de quelques cordons peu saillants. Auriez-vous, Monsieur, le plan d'une telle église que vous pourriez nous soumettre sans délai?¹⁵

It is not known whether this request reached Pugin or if he responded to it. It is certainly true that the architects involved in this project, Pierre Louis Morin and French Jesuit Félice Martin, built a church in keeping with Pugin's architectural theories. Simple and robust, St. Patrick's is remarkable for its rational use of materials and its adaptation to Quebec's climatic conditions (Fig. 38).

Father Quiblier's attitude tends to prove that sectors of the Catholic high clergy had already become familiar with the latest developments in the Gothic Revival in England. Thus the time seemed ripe for the establishment of Cambridge Camden Society doctrines in religious architecture. The two churches built by Wills are the most elequent proof of this. In each, the various components of the plan are expressed in the exterior composition in the manner of the Cambridge Camden Society. Each is characteristic of Wills, whose works remain faithful to his first models of inspiration through to his final years (he died in 1857). As a result, the Anglican cathedral in Montreal is seen as a variation of Wills' Christ Church Cathedral in Fredericton (Fig. 39). The tripartite porch and polygonal turret taken from Wills' model, St. Mary's Church in Snettisham, now become determinant elements of the principal elevation.¹⁶

Christ Church was to mark Montreal architecture in a rather unexpected way. In the midst of an overwhelmingly Catholic community, it updated the Cambridge Camden Society doctrines to assert its Anglican identity and ties with Great Britain. As a result, its presence was certainly a factor in sparking the determination of the Catholic Bishop Ignace Bourget to have his own cathedral erected nearby and make it a dazzling symbol of Catholic dominance by using a design based on a miniaturization of St. Peter's in Rome. After twenty years of obstinate struggle, Bourget reaped the rewards of his efforts. His imitation cathedral indirectly affected the development of Gothic Revival architecture in the Montreal region in that it countered the influence of Gothic Revival by arousing new enthusiasm for Neo-Baroque architectural forms.

Nevertheless, the impact of the project of Msgr. Bourget was not felt until the 1870s and was limited to the Catholic sector. Meanwhile, the Anglican Church founded several missions in the Montreal area, endowing them with small stone churches. These churches show the typical conglomeration of shapes propounded by the Cambridge Camden Society, as well as its preference for the simplicity and sturdiness of the small medieval country churches of the 13th century in England. They can still be seen at Sabrevois, Havelock and Como, but they are nevertheless few and far between as compared with the majority of Catholic churches built along traditional lines (Fig. 40).

On the other hand, the 1850s in Ontario are characterized by widespread construction of small Anglican churches based on the same prototype. One of the first Canadian periodicals to include an architectural section, the Anglo-American Magazine published, in January 1854, an article entitled "Ecclesiological Architecture" defending this type of church with an economic argument.

In this country where woodwork is comparatively cheap and masonry dear, we should have better and cheaper fabrics by letting the wooden element enter more largely into the composition of our ecclesiastical edifices than is generally done. A steep roof is the beauty of a Gothic church. In the early English styles, the outline of a roof usually formed the two sides of an equilateral triangle. With a roof of this pitch, or even somewhat less, the walls need not be higher, for rural churches, than from nine to twelve feet; as the whole space within the roof may be gained by making the external boarding of the roof also the ceiling of the church.¹⁷

The last sentence in this quotation alludes to the principle of structural fidelity as applied to the treatment of ceilings, which involves visible bearing members In this type of church.

This type of church was originally disseminated by architects from Britain such as Kivas Tully and William Hay and later seems to have been introduced among builders. St. John the Evangelist Church in Oxford Mills is a good illustration of the contrast that often tends to be created in such structures by the clustering of Gothic openings in the centre of the large triangle of masonry (Fig. 41). In others such as Christ Church at Roches Point, charm is added to the composition by vernacular influences such as the weather moulding gable and more "domestic" proportions (Fig. 42).

Masonry churches were naturally the most likely media for imitating the shapes of small English medieval churches. After some hesitation, the same concern for structural rationalism was also achieved with a typically North American material: weed. Vertical board-and-batten churches such as St. Andrew's-by-the-Lake at Turkey Point are the best expressions of this concern (Fig. 43).

For urban churches, the Gothic Revival drew its inspiration from different prototypes primarily chosen among 14th century English churches, which were more imposing than these of the Early English Gothic era. It is interesting to note that their appearance is dependent on the wave of prosperity and expansion that came to Ontario towns in the 1840s. The development of Toronto is characteristic;¹⁸ after its incorporation in 1834, Toronto was graced with a veritable army of highly skilled British architects such as William Thomas, Henry Bower Lane, Frederick Cumberland, Kivas Tully, John Howard and William Hay. Through a great number of commissions, they raised Toronto to the ranks of the great European and American capitals in terms of Gothic Revival architecture.¹⁹ Lane in particular built three Gothic Revival churches during his seven years as a resident of Toronto. With Holy Trinity (1843), he introduced to Canada a type of cruciform English church from the Tudor era. Its relatively unusual composition includes crenelated parapets, octagonal towers and Tudor detail on the main façade and its success can be attributed to the repetition of a series of well-proportioned masses and openings (Fig. 44). But the striking resemblance between this church and the one built three years earlier in Baltimore by American architect Robert Cary Long is an indication of sources of inspiration common to American and Ontario architectural circles²⁰ (Fig. 45).

All of the afore-mentioned architects worked in Gothic Revival. Among them, William Thomas and his fellow-countryman Frederick Cumberland became, to different degrees, the initiators of the style as seen by the Cambridge Camden Society. In his first three churches — the Catholic cathedral of Toronto, St. Michael's (1845), Jennings Church (1848) and the Presbyterian church in Hamilton, St. Paul's — Thomas always held with the rectangular type of church (except St. Michael's, which was designed according to a cruciform plan) with a central tower slightly protruding from the entrance façade (Fig. 46). A devoted advocate of Gothic Revival, Thomas used his works to further his research into Neo-Gothic shapes, proportions and motifs. But the decorative details, all drawn from the ornamental repertoire of the 14th century, are now an integral part of the structure, reinforcing the balance of the proportions. Frederick Cumberland's St. James Cathedral (1853) retains the same type of arrangement on the main façade and draws from the same decorative repertoire, but goes farther in adherence to the doctrines of the Cambridge Camden Society; instead of the rectangular plan, Cumberland actually uses the aisle and chancel plan that can be seen in its exterior composition (Fig. 47).

An interesting fact is that the period of faithful imitation of English medieval prototypes, as illustrated by the Anglican cathedrals in Fredericton and Montreal, did not take hold in Ontario. Once the principles of the Cambridge Camden Society had been assimilated, various architects almost immediately jumped to High Victorian Gothic, by directing their research toward the criteria of the picturesque and freedom of expression.

In the east, the development of a rationalistic interpretation of the Gothic Revival was a gradual process based on a firmly established tradition, but on the Prairies and the West Coast, the few examples of Cambridge Camden Society influence looked more like exotic fruits in the architectural landscape.

One of the most remarkable examples of the penetration of Cambridge Camden Society architectural theories into the most remote regions of the Prairies is the presence of the Stanley Mission church on the banks of the Churchill River in Saskatchewan²¹ (Fig. 48). Built in 1854 when the northern prairies were only travelled by Indians and trappers, this church stands as an example of the challenges met by some ministers sent from England by large religious societies. Despite primitive living conditions and the scarcity of materials and manpower, the Anglican minister Robert Hunt built a wooden church that proclaimed the renewal of the liturgy in its plan and details.

Almost thirty years later, the arrival of the transcontinental railway caused a renewal of missionary activity and the opening of dioceses on the Prairies.²² The Qu'Appelle diocese in Saskatchewan still has several of its first little Anglican churches: St. John the Evangelist in Fort Qu'Appelle, St. Peter's in Walpole and St. Thomas in South Qu'Appelle have a charm that may be attributed to wise use of the stone that is so characteristic of the Qu'Appelle Valley (but rare elsewhere in Saskatchewan) combined with the adoption of the porch-nave-chancel plan of the small medieval country churches in England. Their short walls that seem to tie them more firmly to the ground create a harmony of composition with the vast horizon of the prairies (Fig. 49).

On the West Coast, where the historical background was different from that of the Prairie Provinces, the influence of the Cambridge Camden Society arrived by a new means: the Royal Engineers. British Columbia owes its first wave of immigration to the gold rush, which attracted thousands of prospectors and miners in the 1850s. The basic requirements for organizing the community life of these newcomers had to be quickly provided. As a result, in 1858, England sent a contingent of engineers who laid out roads and development plans and also built public buildings.²³ In terms of religious architecture, they worked in cooperation with the Bishop of the new diocese, the Reverend George Hills, a known disciple of the Cambridge Camden Society.²⁴

Bishop and engineers thus succeeded in developing an original interpretation of the Cambridge Camden Society principles. Their first church, Holy Trinity, built in 1860 to serve the new capital of New Westminster, was designed according to the porch-nave-chancel plan (Fig. 50). The concern for functionalism was first seen in the use of wood (a native material) and particularly by the choice of board-and-batten walls with their vertical effect that gives an exterior suggestion of the unseen structural members. Before leaving in 1871, the Royal Engineers endowed the colony with several churches based, with a few variations, on the model of Holy Trinity. There were Christ Church in Hope, the Littoet Church (1862), St. Mark's in Douglas (1862) and St. Mary's in Sapperton (1865). Only the Sapperton church still stands today (Fig. 51). In his memoirs, the first bishop of New Westminster proudly described the little church of St. Mary's that, in his opinion, complied with contemporary development of religious architecture: "It was the fashionable church of those days. Government House stood near, officials and their staff and their residences round about: an English tone pervaded the little society."

Canadian Inventory of Historic Building data point to the fact that the influence of the first Anglican church models in British Columbia continued on until about 1890; beautiful specimens can indeed be found: St. Paul's in Esquimalt (1866), St. Andrew's in Courtenay (1873), All Saint's in North Cowichan (1880), All Saints in Alert Bay (1882) (Fig. 52) and St. Michael's, All Angels Church and St. Saviour in Victoria (1891). All have the basic porch-nave-chancel plan even if the structural expression of vertical board-and-batten walls is absent. On the other hand, their association with the Gothic Revival is emphasized by the slope of their gable roofs, which is steeper than in the first churches built by the Royal Engineers.

Domestic Architecture

Considering the religious symbolism inherent in the Gothic style and the almost exclusive survival of medieval religious buildings over all other types in the 19th century, it was natural that the taste for archaeological and structural truthfulness applied mainly to church construction. Articles in The Ecclesiologist deplored the lack of discipline in the Gothic Revival applied to the domestic sector. In his article entitled "On the Revival of the Ancient Style of Domestic Architecture," published in April 1853, the architect George Street denounces this fact:

It is impossible to look attentively at the modern attempts at a revival of ancient domestic architecture in this and other countries, without feeling that there is much want of success and much unreality in most of our efforts.²⁵

He then presented the guidelines for a renewal based on the principle of truthfulness; this involves a plan simplification, the recommended study of correct details and the use of picturesque effects determined by the requirements of the plan rather than pure whimsy.

How then was this second, more confident period of exploration into an antique style interpreted in the dwellings of Canada? Considering the lack of models to be imitated, things obviously occurred in a somewhat chaotic way; but the difference from the Gothic Revival houses of the romantic phase can be seen in a greater assurance in the handling of shapes and choice of detail, as well as the treatment of a material adapted to the spirit of the style. As expected, the manifestations of this style in the domestic sector were primarily restricted to the Atlantic provinces and Ontario, with infrequent appearances in Quebec and very little on the Prairies and the West Coast.

Toward the middle of the 19th century, Ontario became — more than any other province — the prime area for Gothic Revival in Canadian domestic architecture. This can be explained by the popularity of the style among a clientele drawn from the new wealthy class, the presence of more British architects than anywhere else in Canada and greater circulation of periodicals and pattern books specialized in the interpretation of new architectural styles.

The main concern of the architect William Thomas was religious construction, but he was capable of expressing his preference for Gothic Revival in domestic architecture. Let us first consider the house and office he built for himself in Toronto in 1848.²⁶ The articulation of the façade remains symmetrical, but the rectangular box derived from the Neo-Classic era gives way to a body with a main façade marked by two gabled wings flanking a central hall. This handling of proportions produces a double effect: firstly, it expresses the two functions of the building (house and office) and it gives life to the roof profile. The same desire to heighten the picturesque aspect is seen in the rather original design of the medieval finials and the high polygonal chimneys. Also, the window design, with its ingenious combination of two types of Gothic arches under Tudor drip mouldings terminating in small sculpted heads, reveals a mastery of the formal Gothic repertoire. A brief examination of this building thus brings to light three qualities indicating a greater comprehension of the spirit of the style — a clear definition of the arrangement, a desire to heighten the picturesque effect of certain elements of the plan and a more thorough exploration of the potential of the decorative repertoire (Fig. 53).

Another characteristic — archaeological curiosity — is sometimes found in the Gothic Revival houses of this period. The Gothic style in England survived into the Tudor period (1485-1603). In Ontario, several architects took pleasure in exploiting the transitional character of the period between the Gothic era and the Renaissance that is found in some noble residences dating back to the second half of the 16th century. Signs of this same tendency are found at Rodman Hall in St. Catharines, Grosvenor Lodge in London (Fig. 54) or the Castle in Hamilton.²⁷

In small Ontario towns, some dwellings indicate the proliferation of new models influenced by the publication of the American theorist Andrew Downing. The cottage called The Grove, in Picton, for example, has a surprisingly daring design (Fig. 55). A second look reveals the striking resemblance of this composition to plate No. 128 "Cottage Villa in the Rural Gothic Style" of The Architecture of Country Houses published in 1848 by the American architect Andrew Downing (Fig. 56). This is how Downing described the character of this house:

The body of the house is nearly square, and the elevation is a successful illustration of the manner in which a form usually uninteresting, can be so treated as to be highly picturesque. There is, indeed, a combination of the aspiring lines of the roof with the horizontal lines of the veranda, which expresses picturesqueness very successfully. The high, pointed gable of the central and highest part of this design has a bold and spirited effect, which would be out of keeping with the cottage-like modesty of the drooping, hipped roof, were it not for the equally bold manner in which the chimney-tops spring upwards.

In a pastoral landscape near Creemore, there still stands a house built around 1870 for the Reverend William Forster with a profile and several decorative details taken from drawing No. 129 in The Architecture of Country Houses (Fig. 57, 58). Vertical board-and-batten siding, which Downing praised for its picturesqueness and structural rationalism, attains its ultimate expression in this composition. Strangely, there is a presbytery in Collingwood that is almost an exact replica of this composition, but built in stone; apparently, it was also built for Reverend Forster by his brother Richard, a British architect.²⁸

In Quebec, a few rare examples of this phase of acceptance of Gothic Revival in domestic architecture were commissioned by English-speaking clients. Among prestige structures such as the mansions built on the seigneuries, only the residence of Sir Thomas Edmund Campbell in Mont-Saint-Hilaire, almost entirely rebuilt by the architect Frederick Lawford during the 1850s, provides an impressive example of archaeological taste through an imitation of the manors of the Tudor era.²⁹ The basic source of inspiration was the ancestral home of the Campbells in Inverawe, Scotland. This two-storey brick residence carefully incorporates all the typical features of the manors built for the new merchant class during the first decades of the 16th century: an entrance flanked by turrets (a vestige of medieval castle defenses), parapet gables, bay windows and, above all, the series of ornamental chimneys considerably enlivening the building's silhouette (Fig. 59).

There were still no urban homes influenced by the Gothic Revival in the middle of the 19th century. In domestic architecture this style is best seen in suburban residences built for the English-speaking elite. A good illustration is the home of financier James Oglivy built in 1848 by the English architect Albert Furniss. Left to his own devices without any specific model to be imitated, the architect produced a highly whimsical composition harmoniously combining Tudor motifs with others taken from an older period of the style in order to create the greatest overall picturesque effect (Fig. 60).

These examples of mastery of the Gothic Revival repertoire in Quebec domestic architecture are, on the whole, exceptions. The same may be said of Downing's influence. The few typical examples of this influence create an exotic impression in the Quebec architectural landscape; this is seen in the Bailey house in Tadoussac, with its picturesque arrangement designed to fit into a pleasing country lot (Fig. 61).

Public Architecture

According to the examples given so far, one would tend to assume that vertical board-and-batten siding was limited more to domestic and religious architecture, particularly as its popularity was based on Downing's book Cottage Residences. But in both Canada and the United States, builders took advantage of this economic siding by applying it to a highly varied range of building types. As early as 1860, the European and North American Railway Company, founded to connect the towns of St. John and Shediac in New Brunswick, decided to use a Gothic Revival style combined with vertical board-and-batten materials for all of its stations. The smallest ones create a domestic impression, perhaps to reassure passengers on this new means of transportation. On a much more fanciful tone, the St. John terminal magnified the vertical sweep of its walls with highly extended proportions, the sharp slope of its gable and a crest of finials at the edge of the roof. Pushing orthodoxy to its limits, the train entered a tunnel with a pointed arch built onto the station (Fig. 62)!

The Canadian Inventory of Historic Building has identified even more unusual cases of this siding used in conjunction with a Neo-Gothic style. For example, the little hydraulic station built like a tower on the banks of a peaceful river near Blair, Ontario (Fig. 63), or the picturesque public urinal ennobled by fretwork roof edging and appointed door (Fig. 64).

A study of this second period of Gothic Revival would not be complete without a word on the increased use of this style in educational institutions, particularly those operated by the Anglican Church. In this sector, the two prestigious university complexes at Oxford and Cambridge, which were built in the Middle Ages, created an early popular association of the Neo-Gothic style with the educational field.³⁰ In Canada, it was not until the 1850s that this style reached the upper echelons of erudite institutions. The opportunity presented itself with the construction of one of the first colleges of its type in 1849, following legislation establishing King's College in Toronto as a secular university. Before the threat of reduced Anglican Church influence in the university area, the Anglican Bishop Strachan decided to found a university under the direction of the Anglican Church. This was the origin of Trinity College, for which the first edifice was built in 1851 by the architect Kivas Tully.³¹ Trinity College retained the quadrangle-type plan of the ancient colleges of the Tudor era with an entrance flanked by two high polygonal towers. The roofline was made up of elements such as turrets, gables, decorative dormer windows and finials, creating an endless variety of visual impressions. A similar treatment was used for the windows, which were designed with various Gothic arches and arranged to avoid any hint of monotony (Fig. 65).

During the same period, Quebec was also given its first large Gothic Revival college by Anglican officials who decided to give young anglophones in the Eastern Townships the opportunity to obtain a Protestant university education partially oriented toward theology. As a result, the University of Bishop's College was built in Lennoxville. The central edifice built in 1846 was extended by a chapel and other wings arranged in a picturesque row that gave the illusion of a complex erected down through the centuries³² (Fig. 66).

This need to identify with the prestigious British institutions of knowledge brought, in the 1860s, the Gothic Revival to Victoria, British Columbia, where a British patron enabled the erection of a girls' school operated by the Anglican Church — Lady Angela Burdett Coutts School.³³ The original project conceived by the architect James Wright was remarkably ambitious for a town as new as Victoria; it was only partially constructed (Fig. 67). But this red brick building with an asymmetrical plan shows a more sober form of the trend toward a variety of shapes based on the use of medieval motifs, sharp gable roofs, turrets, pointed windows with tracery and bay windows (Fig. 68).

During this second period in the style's evolution dominated by the architectural theories of the Cambridge Camden Society and the influence of the American theorist Andrew Downing, it may be said that the Gothic Revival achieved recognition. Indeed, representative constructions display one or all of the following qualities: structural rationalism, the beginnings of a desire to imitate archaeological prototypes and greater skill in handling the formal Gothic repertoire. This is not, however, the high point of the style, but rather one more step toward the greater freedom of expression that was to characterize the works of High Victorian Gothic.