Originally published in Historic Guelph, Volume XXVIII, September 1989

Figure 1: Gothic Guelph. Several Gothic spires dominate Guelph's townscape in the early 1880s. From the left: the old St. Bartholomew's Roman Catholic Church. with the transept and fleche of the new Church of Our Lady looming over it; Central School; St. George's Anglican Church; St.Andrew's Presbyterian Church; and possibly. through the trees, First Baptist Church. Source: George Grant. Picturesque Canada. vol. 2 (1882).

The artist who depicted Guelph for Picturesque Canada in the early 1880s emphasizes some of the Gothic spires which dominated the skyline. (Figure 1). The fledgling city had been transformed in the previous twenty years from a frontier community built in a late Georgian classical tradition, to a Victorian city dressed up in the latest metropolitan style. Guelph's rapid transformation was typical of changes throughout Ontario. and indeed. the entire English speaking world. At a general cultural level, this "profusion of spires", as one historian has put it. represented an attempt by the various Christian churches to proclaim the power of the sacred in the face of a society that was becoming increasingly secular and materialistic.[1] More particularly. this Gothic revival can be traced to Great Britain, where this movement originated mainly among church architects and architectural critics. It was popularized in Canada by British-born and trained architects such as William Thomas and William Hay, or by Canadians trained by them. such as Henry Langley.

Figure 2: Henry Langley. Source:Canadian Architect and Builder. vol. 20 (1907).

This paper will explore the way in which a community like Guelph adopted the Gothic style for its religious buildings, by examining the work of Toronto-based Henry Langley. This architect designed three fine gothic structures in Guelph in the late 1860s and early 1870s; and later, in the 1890s. when the Gothic had run its course, a fourth church in a Tudor-revival style. Langley was widely regarded as the leading church architect in Ontario. but he was only one of several who could be used to illustrate the process whereby Toronto-based architects were chosen to design Guelph churches in the latest Gothic style. It had begun in 1857 with William Hay's striking St. Andrew's Church for the Church of Scotland; it included James Smith who designed Knox for the Free Church Presbyterians in 1868. and later Dublin Street for the Wesleyan Methodists (1872): and it culminated in the great Gothic edifice of the Church of Our Lady (1876), designed by the leading architect of Roman Catholic churches in Ontario. Joseph Connolly.

The practice of choosing a prestigious Toronto-based firm to design the most important local buildings was well established in Guelph before the introduction of Gothic styles. Canada's best known architect of the mid-nineteenth century. William Thomas, had been given the commission for the second Anglican church in 1851 (in Romanesque Revival style). and he later produced the plans for the elegant Renaissance Revival town hall in 1856. Unlike the situations further west, in London. for example, where locally-based architects won important commissions, Guelph's local architects seldom were given the chance to design major buildings. but rather served as superintendents of works in constructing the buildings designed by their more influential colleagues in Toronto. As a result, it was Toronto-produced versions of the Gothic and other styles which dominated Guelph. representing an example of how larger metropolitan centres determined the style and taste of smaller communities in their hinterland.

The Gothic Revival style brought to Guelph by Toronto's architects had its roots in English religious architecture in the 1840s, in both the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions. The major advocate. the Catholic architect. Augustus Welby Pugin, argued that the Gothic was the true Christian architecture. The Anglican interest came through the universities, in the Oxford High Church movement and the Cambridge journal The Ecclesiologist. These academics agreed with Pugin that the prevailing classical style was unchristian and symbolized the inroads of secularism in the churches as well as in society in general. The result was a call for more "sacramentality", which involved two major principles in how churches should be designed and used. The first was the centrality of the altar in the chancel (choir), with all sight lines and activity focused on the place where the sacraments were performed. The chancel and the nave (where the congregation gathered) would be distinct and separate features. The second principle was that the church's outside shape should clearly and honestly reflect this interior distinction, with different levels of roof line. This revived interest in "sacramentality" might be seen not only as a reaction against classicism, but also against a Protestant influence in church organization. Since the Reformation, churches increasingly had emphasized the centrality of the pulpit and the preached word, rather than the altar and the sacraments. The Gothic Revival was therefore not only a return to what was considered to be correct medieval church design, but what Catholics and many Anglicans felt was correct religious practice.[2]

What they were reviving had literally been invented in the Paris region in the twelfth century and enthusiastically adopted by the French, the English, and the Germans as their own national styles. The structural components included the pointed arch, the ribbed vault. the flying buttress, and soaring spire and the great stained glass windows. This was not art for art's sake, however. The object of the new approach was to promote certain religious and social values. not aesthetic values. Gothic builders looked for ways to achieve "luminosity" - to allow God's miraculous light to be filtered through the gem-like quality of stained glass. And the verticality of the pointed arches, and the great naves and spires were intended to direct humanity's vision upward.[3]

The Gothic Revival in Canada and in communities like Guelph in particular was not merely an imitation of archaeologically correct models. While the acceptance of the Gothic eventually made it the equivalent of "Christian" architecture by the 1870s, at least two distinctive approaches to the revival can be distinguished, each representing a particular religious ideology. One was the formal revival of a medieval model, as Pugin himself demonstrated in his famous Liverpool church of 1841 with its clear distinction between choir and nave, and its dramatic spire. In Guelph, Langley's design for the third St. George's church was of this formal type, clearly based on Pugin's example. Another type might be designated as romantic Gothic, which involved taking certain elements such as the pointed arch for windows and doors, and a Gothic spire, and attaching them primarily for decorative purposes. In these cases, the basic structure of the building was still the rectangular. Reformation preaching box with a central pulpit; the Gothic was ornamental only, not inherent in the structure. Most Guelph churches associated with the Gothic style were of this type, including St. Andrew's, Knox, Chalmers, Dublin Street. and First Baptist. But even this relatively superficial use of the Gothic style would have been considered unacceptable by several congregations in the 1840s and 1850s, for the Gothic was equated, in their view, with establishment religion and with Roman Catholicism in particular. Thus. the early stone churches built prior to the 1860s by the Free Church Presbyterians, the Wesleyan Methodists, the Evangelical Union Presbyterians, and the Congregationalists were defiantly in the classical tradition in order to distance themselves stylistically as well as theologically from the established churches.

As in other Canadian communities during the Victorian era, religion in Guelph was a central feature of how people defined themselves and how society was organized. On the one hand, the various congregations provided an experience of community and respectability for most people. During the 1850s and the 1870s, the two decades of most rapid growth, most of the denominations built impressive structures which reflected their religious values, and not, incidentally, their prosperity. On the other hand, these churches were also divisive forces, dividing people by doctrine, by ethnicity, and by class. Antagonisms were particularly sharp between the Roman Catholics and the various Protestant bodies, which had resulted in the burning of the first Catholic Church, St. Patrick's, in 1844. The Catholic proportion of the population rose substantially during the second half of the nineteenth century, from only 10% of 1,700 in 1851, to 20% of the 11,496 who made up the city's population in 1901.

Rivalry between the various Protestant groups was apparent as well, with some significant shifts in their relative sizes between 1851 and 1901. The Anglicans dropped appreciably from a dominant 30% to 17%, the various Presbyterian groups remained the same at 24%; the Methodists rose slightly from 22% to 25%; and several other groups such as the Congregationalists and Baptists developed modest congregations by the 1860s. But the most intense rivalries seem to have been reserved for splits within denominations. The Presbyterians were divided into at least five separate groups, the Methodists into three, and the Baptists into two.[4] The buildings these rival groups constructed thus were statements about their ideological characteristics as well as symbols of their relative status.

For an architect to please all these denominations at various times throughout the province probably required an unusual amount of diplomacy and patience. Yet Henry Langley succeeded in doing just this; by the time of his death in 1907 he had designed churches for virtually every major denomination.[5] Three different denominations secured his services in Guelph, and he designed churches for at least fifteen other communities in Ontario, with seventeen churches in Toronto alone. The measure of Langley's influence in church design was best demonstrated by his work in Toronto, where he built or completed the three major churches in the city. From the late 1860s to the mid 1870s, he added the tower and spire to St. Michael's Roman Catholic Cathedral, the tower and spire of St. James Anglican Cathedral, and built the "Cathedral of Methodism" - Metropolitan Methodist. He also built major churches for the Baptists and Presbyterians. In addition to churches, he and his firm also designed major public buildings in Toronto such as the Eighth Post Office, the Bank of British North America, and McMaster College, as well as mansions for leading businessmen such as William McMaster and Robert Simpson.[6]

Langley was considered to be a leading professional among architects at a time when that occupation was only vaguely defined. He had received his architectural education by the ideal means, serving a period of apprenticeship with a recognized architect, rather than practising architecture after training in surveying or civil engineering as many did. In practice. anyone could put up a sign and call themselves an architect even though they had no formal training whatsoever. As a result, those who did have a solid background in the field stood out as professionals.[7] Langley's early circumstances appear to have been relatively modest, for he was born in 1836 in Toronto as the son of a shoemaker. After an education at the Toronto Academy, he spent seven years with William Hay. from whom he was said to have "obtained a good training in Gothic architecture."[8] Hay was a Scot who worked in Toronto for a decade, but while there designed a number of significant buildings including the Toronto General Hospital, St. Basil's Church and St. Michael's College. He also provided the plans for St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Guelph, the first and one of the finest of the Gothic stone churches that graced the town's skyline.

When Hay returned to Scotland in 1862 to spend the rest of his life restoring St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Langley went into business with Hay's former partner, Thomas Gundry, an English architect. An effective division of responsibility made the firm immensely successful. According to the professional journal, the Canadian Architect and Builder, "Mr. Langley had charge of the draughting and designing in the new firm. Mr. Gundry's old country training fitting him for other branches of an architect's practise", especially valuations and estimates.[9] The firm's strong reputation for design therefore was largely the result of Langley's work. After Gundry's death in 1869, Langley made the firm a family affair. In 1872 he took his brother Edward, a builder, as a partner, as well as his nephew and pupil, Edmund Burke. Later, in the 1890s, his son and pupil, Charles, became his partner. Throughout his career he promoted a professional approach to architecture. He was, for example, a charter member of the Ontario Association of Architects, and the list of his pupils includes some of Toronto's finest architects such as Frank Darling, J.C.B. Horwood, and H.B. Gordon. At his death he was characterized as "a man of great kindness of heart, upright in all his dealings with his fellow men, and one who from first to last upheld and practised honourably his chosen profession."[10]

Figure 3: Chalmers Presbyterian Church. Langley's design, 1869, showing rear and front elevation. Source: Horwood Collection. Archives of Ontario.

Langley was first invited to Guelph early in 1869 to advise the Anglicans of St. George's Church about a new building, but local leaders could not agree on location, style. or cost so that the project was delayed for almost two years. Later that year he was again in Guelph to discuss a building for a group which had recently broken away from Knox Presbyterian, the major Free Kirk in Guelph.[11] The new congregation called itself Chalmers. after the Rev. Thomas Chalmers who had led the Free Church movement in Scotland. Its Board of Managers seemed quite definite about what they wanted in terms of the new building's design, for Langley was requested to prepare a plan "after the general style of Knox Church, Montreal, upon a reduced scale."[12] A month later he presented a draft plan to them, which they approved. and instructed him "to proceed with execution of the plans and specifications."[13] The final plans were adopted several weeks later, "after mature consideration and deliberation", in the words of the Board's secretary.[14] (Figure 3) The eventual cost of the church, including the site, was $25,000. a relatively large sum for a completely new congregation. The contractors included some of Guelph's most competent firms; masonry - Dobbie and Pattison, carpentry - George and Alex Bruce: Plastering - William Day.

Figure 4: Chalmers Church. Facade from Quebec Street. Source: Gilbert A. Stelter

The choice of a site for the new church seems almost provocative, for it was almost next door on the same downtown street (Quebec) as Knox Church. from which they had split. And the use of a relatively sophisticated Gothic design must have been calculated to look more impressive than the very simple Gothic of Knox's new building, designed by James Smith of Toronto a year earlier. Knox Church was essentially a rectangular box ornamented only with plain pointed windows. Chalmers, however. was described as "the best constructed and the most elegantly furnished church in town" when it opened for services in 1871.[15] The facade effectively relates to busy Quebec Street in several ways. (Figure 4) Instead of a tower or spire, two large pinnacles frame the front gable, producing an upward thrust, a feeling of verticality so basic to the medieval Gothic. The large window in the front gable was "said to be the finest piece of stained window work ever produced in Guelph."[16] Langley certainly used tracery in this window in a traditional Gothic fashion. From the outside, as can be seen from the photograph, the glass looks black, while the carved stone provides the interest. From the inside, the tracery shapes the light of the glass and is subordinate to the light.

Figure 5: Chalmers Church. Langley's sectional drawings of aisles, gallery, pews and pinnacles. Source: Horwood Collection.

The interior of the church was characterized as "neat. elegant. and appropriate - nothing gaudy."[17] but was as close to a formal Gothic church as Langley could hope to get with a Presbyterian congregation. The central nave, topped by a ribbed vault, gives the impression of soaring height. The aisles on each side, as shown in Figure 5, had their own Gothic-like ceilings and were clearly evident from the exterior by a roofline which was set at a different angle than that of the roof of the nave. The pulpit, of course, was central, with all the seats arranged in circular form facing it. Four carpeted passages (now usually referred to as aisles) ran the length of the church and terminated in a wide open space in front of the pulpit. Some of Langley's many detailed drawings are reproduced here to show the care given to the design of smaller elements such as windows, pews, and woodwork. (Figure 6) The side galleries and dormers in the roof were built in 1896 to later designs by Langley's firm.

Figure 6: Chalmers Church. Langley's drawings of windows and doors. Source: Horwood Collection.

Langley's dealing with the Chalmers leadership proved to be a simple matter compared to his effort to provide the Anglicans of St. George's with a plan. When he became involved in early 1869, he encountered a complex situation which had been twenty years in the making. Part of the problem stemmed from the old church's location in St. George's Square, where it inhibited the commercial expansion of Upper Wyndham Street, as the focal point of the community had slowly moved north from the area of the market square and the town hall. (Figures 7 and 8). Any discussions of rebuilding, or even of relocating in an entirely new place seemed to lead to endless debates and eventually stalemates. These arguments certainly reflected a concern for finances, but probably also masked serious divisions about leadership and about the theological orientation of the congregation. The Rector, the Rev. Arthur Palmer. appears to have preferred a low church approach. while some of the church's leading members pressed for the more formal ritual of the Oxford movement. For example. in a published response to some of his critics. Palmer wrote that it was his task to emphasize the "teaching of that pure and reformed branch of the Catholic Church."[18]

Figure 7. St. George's Church in St. George's Square. Detail of 1862 map of the square. Source: T.W. Cooper. Map of Guelph, 1862. Guelph Civic Museum.

Figure 8. St. George's Church in St. George's Square. Photo from the 1860s shows the first and second Anglican churches attached to each other. Clearly visible at the rear are four Gothic windows of the church of1832, and in front, the Romanesque Revival building designed by William Thomas in 1851. This photograph, like the map of 1862. indicates the extent of commercial development in the vicinity of the church in the square. Source: Guelph Public Library.

This ideological tension may have been at the heart of the chequered history of the existing church in the square. The first St. George's had been constructed in 1832 under Palmer's direction. in the square which John Galt and the Canada Company had granted the Anglicans. That simple original building had Gothic touches. particularly the pointed windows with their simple stained glass. These can be detected in Figure 8 where four of the windows still existed in the 1860s as a remnant of the original church. (Several of these windows are preserved in the Guelph Civic museum.) The need for additional space led to proposals in 1851 for a new church to replace the old. but financial constraints eventually dictated a decision to "connect the new portion of the church with the remnant of the old. and to leave the building so patched up until some future day."[19] Palmer must have privately arranged for the design of the new portion. for the Vestry Minutes record that he "submitted a plan of a new church by Wm. Thomas. Esq. of Toronto" which was accepted by the committee.[20] That Palmer had asked the leading Toronto-based architect of the mid-century for plans indicates a good deal about Palmer's conception of the place that his parish represented in Guelph and beyond. But the choice of style may also tell us something about Palmer's theological orientation. for what Palmer submitted to his vestry was the design for a Romanesque Revival church. This was a medieval style which predated the Gothic. and tended to a heavy. squat appearance in contrast to the soaring. lighter looking Gothic. Palmer was well aware of the current trend among his Anglican contemporaries to build in the Gothic fashion, as was being illustrated by the construction of St. James Cathedral in Toronto.

Palmer's deliberate promotion of a non-Gothic design may have been responsible for the congregation's lukewarm response to raising the necessary funds to complete the new church. William Thomas drew plans for the transept. choir, and vestry (Figure 9) in 1855. but these were never to be realized.[21] By 1858 the vestry reported that its fund raising campaign was a failure, and that they felt the completion of the church was an impossible task.[22] But pressure for action of some kind continued to build up locally concerning the church's location in the square. The town council responded to the demands of businessmen for improved traffic around the church by appropriating some of the property at each corner of the church's lot. And a series of offers were received from local businessmen who wished to purchase the church and land and clear away the building entirely to promote better traffic now. These offers, including one from within the vestry by the irascible Dr. William Clarke, were always considered to be too low. But Rev. Palmer again took the initiative in 1860, just in case they did decide to move, by purchasing lots 63 and 64 on Woolwich Street for [[sterling]]600 on the church's behalf.[23]

Figure 9. Proposal for completion of St. George's Church, 1855. Drawing by William Thomas for the proposed transept, chancel and vestry emphasizes the character of the Romanesque Revival treatment of windows and doors. Source: Henry Langley Collection, Canadiana Room, Metropolitan Toronto Public Library.

During the 1860s discussions continued on whether to rebuild in St. George's Square or perhaps on the lots purchased by Rev. Palmer. At one point, two local architect/builders, David Murray and Stephen Boult,were consulted about the relative merits of the alternatives. For fees of $40 each, they reported independently that the cost of properly renovating the current church would be between [[sterling]]3,000 and almost [[sterling]]5,000. A new church on Woolwich, with a steeple, "without much ornament, but strong and durable, of a plain but chaste and effected design" would cost from [[sterling]]4,200 to [[sterling]]4,650.[24] These consultants were hardly rank amateurs. Murray had designed St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Fergus, in striking Gothic fashion, in 1862, and Boult designed and built a fine Gothic structure for the Congregationalists in Guelph in 1867. Yet neither was to be used when St. George's finally decided to take action by 1869, for the vestry went to Langley for its plans.

Langley's advice to the congregation did little to resolve the problem of alternate sites, however. On the one hand, completion of the Thomas designed church would not result in giving it the commanding appearance it should possess. nor was the lot on the square large enough for an imposing looking new church. On the other hand. the Woolwich Street lots required additional expenditure in site preparation as the land fell away sharply to the Speed River. In the ensuing confusion. Langley produced a plan presumably for the site in the square. As shown in Figure 10. the facade resembled Chalmers Church, with a central gable featuring a striking window over a double entrance. The details and the general conception were relatively formal Gothic, especially the separation of nave and chancel and the flanking aisles with their own roofline. Unlike Chalmers, however. a strong transept completed the design.

Figure 10: Langley's first proposal for St. George's Church, 1869. This early, unused plan of a front elevation, a ground plan, and a sectional view, dated May 29th. 1869, was probably drawn for a building in the square. Source: Horwood Collection.

But the congregation found it almost impossible to raise sufficient funds for a church that would cost over $20,000. Perhaps on the premise that the site in the square was the reason for the lack of support. Palmer again proposed the Woolwich Street site be used and the old site sold. This finally appears to have been taken up enthusiastically. Langley's new design must have been prepared after this decision. for it represented a sophisticated adaptation to the particular site. Suddenly it seemed possible to spend as much as $28,000 on the building. Stephen Boult's tender for constructing the building was accepted, and he worked closely with Langley on the working drawings shown as Figures 11 and 12. The old church and land in the square were sold in a complicated deal that eventually saw Dr. Clarke as the owner. For a time he and Boult seriously planned to put up another stone building in the square, but public pressure to keep the site clear for the benefit of traffic finally won the day.[25]

Figure 11: Langley's final design for St. George's Church. This drawing, from the Speed River side, emphasizes the exterior distinctions between the chancel, vestry, nave and aisles. Also illustrated are the patterns of the slate roof and the rubble stone construction, meant to increase the picturesque quality of the design. Source: Langley Collection, Metropolitan Toronto Public Library.

Figure 12: St. George's Church basement plan. In the absence of any original drawings of the interior of the ground floor, this drawing ofthe layout ofthe basement provides some idea of the interior organization. One can distinguish the chancel, the vestry, the nave, and the base of the tower at the upper right corner. This and Figure 11 were working drawings used by both Langley. the architect, and Boult, the builder. They are covered with calculations in pencil which are only vaguely apparent in a small reproduction. Source: Langley Collection, Metropolitan Toronto Public Library.

Figure 13: St. George's Church Chancel and altar. Source: an early 20th century postcard in the collection of John Keleher.

The new St. George's was to be a textbook version of the English medieval parish church, resembling Pugin's Liverpool church. It represented several formal Gothic Revival principles. First, the interior division made clear the distinction between the chancel or choir and the nave. The nave was divided from the aisles by rows of pointed arches which direct the eye toward the major focal point, the altar. Over the altar, Langley placed a striking stained glass window, similar to that in Chalmers' facade, which later was dedicated in Palmer's memory. (Figure 13) Second, the exterior shape clearly reflected the internal organization. As is shown by Figure 14, the different roof lines of the chancel, the vestry, and the nave all suggest differences in their interior functions. And third, the placement of the tower and spire was skilfully handled to achieve the maximum impact of the church's presence in the community. The tower terminated the vista of Douglas Street. illustrated by the watercolour by artist Evan Macdonald (Figure 15), which tied the new building symbolically to the congregation's original location in the square. As Boult was completing construction of the tower late in 1872, the Mercury reported that its "great height forms quite a landmark to strangers approaching the town from certain quarters."[26]

Figure 14: St. George's Church. The view from Woolwich Street captures the complexity of the church's components. Source: Gilbert A. Stelter

Figure 15: The tower of St. George's Church as seen from St. George's Square. The tower terminates the vista of Douglas Street as shown in this watercolour by Evan Macdonald. Source: private collection.

The official opening of the church in 1973 elicited a considerable amount of public interest and praise. The Mercury predicted that "for many years to come it will be one of the architectural beauties of the town, and a proud monument of the vision, zeal and liberality of the congregation for whom it has been erected."[27] The Elora News reported that at the evening service, "the brilliant appearance of the church,when fully lighted up, was the subject of much comment."[28] The Toronto Globes Guelph coverage, however, only mentioned the capacity crowds and gave almost equal space to a buggy accident near the new Baptist Church.[29]

The Rev. Palmer, who had also become the Archdeacon of Toronto, considered the completion of the church as the crowning achievement of his career in Guelph. As he wrote a friend after his retirement, he had left the congregation "a large and flourishing and united body... possessed of a church fabric which you justly call beautiful, the erection of which was the dream of my life and the completion of which, before leaving you was essential to my happiness and peace."[30] But perhaps the Lord Bishop of Toronto, who preached the sermon at the church's opening, provided the most objective assessment of the congregation's experience in building the new church. After congratulating them on "the erection of the magnificent building in which they were assembled," he "particularly alluded to the necessity of union among members of the church. no matter what their rank or station in life might be." He sympathetically concluded that "he knew the toil and trouble and anxiety which such an undertaking must have entailed upon the congregation."[31]

Figure 16: Langley's design for First Baptist Church, Woolwich Street. Source: Horwood Collection.

Langley's third commission in Guelph was a plan for First Baptist Church in the fall of 1871. The relatively small congregation was able to muster enough financial means to begin a fairly large building because it was willing to complete it in stages and because one of its leading members, Charles Raymond. contributed the land. some of the furnishings, and a good deal of cash.[32] Langley's original drawings show a very popular design used with only minor variations for many Ontario Churches. (Figure 16) For example. two years later he sent an almost iden- tical set of drawings to the Roman Catholic Church at Newmarket.[33] For Baptists and Catholics to have accepted the same style suggests that style had lost its ideological content by the early 1870s. Gothic had become equated with Christian architecture in the mind of the public.

Although construction began early in 1872, the congregation intended to complete the basement only for purposes of worship, and finish the rest when they could afford it. The basement was prominent in the design. and was reported to be "almost entirely above ground. and thus obviating the usually sound objections to basements."[34] As in the case of St. George's Anglican Church, Stephen Boult was associated with Langley in the project, on this occasion as superintendent of works rather than as contractor. The overall design was described by the Mercury, as "Gothic throughout." including the ceiling which was an "open Gothic one of dressed timbers."[35] The layout was in the Protestant tradition. with the pulpit central. as shown in Figure 17. The tower and spire were completed in 1874, and during that year it was decided to lengthen the building by thirty feet and to complete it by the following year.

Figure 17: Layout of First Baptist Church. Source: Horwood Collection.

The church, when completed. did not correspond to Langley's origi nal design in several important respects. Langley's drawing (Figure 16) placed the tower to the left of the front gable. for he must have hoped to terminate the vista of Charles Street with the tower. The comparison to the placement of St. George's tower is obvious. but in this case, Charles Street is a relatively obscure residential street. (Figure 18) The church's leaders may have decided that the tower would be more effectively placed on the other side of the gable. where it would be more apparent from several major streets. The spire of the tower, as completed. was considerably shorter than the one designed by Langley, giving it a rather squat. truncated look (Figure 19) compared to the elegant version of the original plan.

Figure 18: View of First Baptist Church from Charles Street. The spire above the tower was removed some years ago a fire. Source: Gilbert A. Stelter

Figure 19: First Baptist Church with original spire. Source: Guelph Public Library

While Langley was working with Guelph's Baptists and Anglicans on their new churches, he also designed a new church for the Anglicans at Elora, a congregation ministered to occasionally by the Rev. Arthur Palmer. An Elora newspaperman described the church at its official opening in 1875 as "remarkably pretty... in the Gothic style of the early English period." The architects, he concluded, "have succeeded in producing a design which reflects great credit on them."[36] What Langley reproduced in Elora was the quintessential Gothic character of the English parish church, on a smaller scale than that of St. George's in Guelph. The tensions within the Anglican denomination in general also were apparent at the church's opening. The Bishop of Niagara "referred to the Ritualistic tendencies of certain Churches in England, but while he condemned such practices in general, he commended the hearty manner in which they [presumably the Elora parishioners] made the responses." And in another reference to a formal style of worship, the Bishop "also condemned difficult singing as vicious, but liked to hear singing that all can take part in."[37]

Figure 20: St. John the Evangelist, Elora. Shown is the nave and tower/spire of a medieval parish church. The chancel, which cannot be seen, is located behind the tower/spire. Source: Guelph Public Library

The remaking of Guelph in a Gothic mode culminated in the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady, begun in 1876. The superb site and magnificent building combined to produce an extraordinary architectural icon for the entire community. The commission was given to Joseph Connolly, the best known Catholic architect in the province, who designed his masterpiece based, as requested, on some of the major architectural features of Cologne Cathedral.[38] With this building, the Catholics seemed to wish to reassert their ownership of the Gothic style. And in choosing a cathedral-like scale and design, they proclaimed the superiority of their place of worship over the mere parish churches of their rivals. As the church neared completion in the late 1880s (minus the towers), the Gothic still had some of its old magic in promoting certain values, at least as far as some clerics were concerned. In his sermon at the official opening in 1888. Bishop Walsh of London contrasted the "pagan" style of the classical buildings. "drawn in lines horizontal, as though the architect were not able to rise above the earth", with what he referred to as "Christian Gothic", whose "lofty vaults. and flying buttresses, and tapering spires, all lead the mind to higher contemplation, and express the longing and yearning of the soul to attain its destiny and reach its God."[39]

With the exception of the Church of Our Lady, there was little church construction in Guelph during the 1880s. By the 1890s, the Gothic was losing its fashionable status. and even Henry Langley produced designs in other styles, as for the Second Baptist Church in Guelph in 1892. A group which broke away from First Baptist purchased land near the home church on Woolwich and brought Langley back to Guelph for his last commission in what was now a city. The Tudor Revival (or perhaps Jacobean) building reflected not only a retreat from the Gothic, but a move to brick as the favoured building material. (Figures 21 and 22) That fall. in its annual summary of building activity, the Mercury reported that it was "noticeable this season that the new buildings are made of brick, driving out the common kinds and the stone as well."[40]

Figure 21: Langley's design for Second Baptist Church, 1892. Source: Horwood Collection.

Figure 22: Second Baptist Church. This later became St. Paul's Lutheran Church, and more recently, condominiums. The "modern" style is a stark contrast to the Gothic spire of St. Andrew's Presbyterian in the left background. Source: Gilbert A. Stelter.

But the Gothic had one last gasp in Victorian Guelph, fittingly among High Church Anglicans wishing to retain the traditional ritualistic values associated with this medieval style. The conflicts within St. George's finally resulted in a breakaway congregation, calling itself St. James, based on a concern for the restoration of the Eucharist to its place as the principal Sunday service and an attitude of greater reverence in public worship. The plan for their new church, designed by Toronto-based Richard Windeyer, reflected this emphasis, for they chose a parish church in Gothic style with a particularly traditional spire.[41] The manner in which places like Guelph were "Gothicized" in the Victorian era tells us a good deal about the formation of Canadian culture at the level of the local community. The Gothic Revival did not originate in Canadian metropolitan centres. of course, but large cities like Toronto played a major role in the dissemi nation of this cultural and stylistic trend. This kind of cultural or aesthetic metropolitanism was personalized through influential architects such as Langley. On the other hand, the enormous power of Toronto was a necessary vehicle for the exercise of his influence.

This is not to suggest that smaller places had these larger cultural trends imposed upon them in some exploitative way. Residents of Guelph who were involved in decision-making in their respective church bodies brought in Toronto-based architects and their styles because they felt it was in their own best interests to do so. Not only were they making a statement about the relative status of their particular group within the local community. but they were also bearing witness in the most effective way they could to the value of the spiritual in an increasingly secular world.