Description of Historic Place

The Old Church Theatre is a small, gothic-inspired church with a rectanglar floor plan and tall spire, located on Harmston Street in downtown Courtenay. The heritage place consists of the church and grounds.

Heritage Value

The Old Church Theatre is important for its historical, aesthetic and social and sprititual values, particularly related to the advent of a Catholic place of worship in Courtenay and its ongoing importance to the community.

Dedicated in 1938 by Bishop J.D. Cody, the Old Church Theatre has historical value through its association with the Catholic Church and its relatively late arrival in Courtenay. Prior to the construction of the Roman Catholic Church of the Canadian Martyrs, catholics living in Courtenay worshipped in the City’s residences.

The church has an historical relationship to the tenure of Father John Tunner, who arrived in 1945, and is important for its service to a wide-ranging congregation in local communities outside Courtenay, from Oyster Bay to Buckley Bay, over a 60 year period.

A downtown landmark, the church is symbolic of the new parish of Cumberland-Courtenay and the occasion of Courtenay’s catholics to have a church of their own, reflecting the expanding population of Courtenay generally during the 1930s.

Designed by local architect and builder William Hagarty, the designer of Courtenay’s Native Sons Hall, the church’s simplistic vertical lines, steep gabled roof and stucco exterior are an adaptation of the typical gothic catholic church fine-tuned to its location, available building materials and 1930s construction date. While the gothic style, reflected by the arched windows, rectangular massing and spire, is in keeping with the beliefs of religious revivals and used for churches across North America, the Old Church Theatre has a domesticity reflected in its stucco cladding, gabled roof and square roof brackets, while the recessed facades around the windows suggest a 1930s design aesthetic.

The church’s social value is found in its historical and current importance to community groups, originally to the Catholic Women’s League, the Knights of Columbus, and Catholic youth groups and currently, the Old Church Theatre Society, a volunteer society formed in 1992 to purchase the Church to preserve it from imminent destruction and to educate and raise the artistic awareness of the public-at-large through the medium of theatrical, musical, and literary presentations and artistic displays.

Source: City of Courtenay Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements which define the heritage character of the Old Church Theatre include its:

Site and setting
- location of the church in Courtenay’s downtown

Architectural features
- rectangular massing
- cross-gabled roof design with square brackets
- stucco cladding accented by a curved recessed pattern
- symmetrically spaced casement windows with semi-circular upper portion, two-sashed rectangular lower portion, each divided into 12 panes
- details including metal church spire, stone entry walls and wooden door

Landscape
- foundation planting and lawn surrounding the church