Description of Historic Place

126 Wellington Street is a fine stone Gothic Revival building built by 1865. The building is located on the north-west corner of Wellington Street at Johnson Street in the Old Sydenham Ward Heritage Area in the City of Kingston.

The property was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act by the City of Kingston on March 1, 1984 in By-Law No. 84-65.

Heritage Value

126 Wellington Street is a fine-stone Gothic Revival building designed by John Power in 1864 as the First Congregationalist Church. The building, erected by 1865, is regarded as one of the finest Gothic structures in Canada (Mika, 1989). The heritage value associated with the property is three-fold; its extraordinary Gothic design value, its contextual location at the prominent corner of Wellington at Johnson Streets across from St. George's Hall, and its association with renowned Kingston architects John Power and Joseph Power.

The property, formerly occupied by a small Wesleyan Methodist church from 1822 until 1850, was sold to the Congregationalists for the construction of their new house of worship. The First Congregationalist Church, designed by John Power in 1864, was erected by 1865, housing the First Chapter and First Preceptory in Ontario. In 1883, Joseph Power, John Power's son, added as schoolroom, transforming the original rectangular plan into a Latin cross. Following a 1891 fire that damaged the interior of the church, the building was restored and enlarged based on plans designed by architect J.B. Reid, including transepts. Kingston's 1892 Fire Insurance Plans indicate that the building height reached 20 feet to the eaves and 40 feet to the ridges. When the Congregationalists affiliated with Chalmers Church, the building was sold to the Masons in 1923. Currently, the building is occupied by the Wellington Street Theatre, with a two playing spaces; the main theatre and a gallery space.

126 Wellington Street is of design value not only because of the property's individual architectural elements, but also as a coherent whole. John Power's compelling 1864 Gothic Revival design of the fine stone building puts an important emphasis on height and strikes an empathetic note with the enormous scale of its central window. The building – whose rhythm of the side buttresses can be appreciated when viewed from an angle - still captures attention on the prominent north-east corner of Wellington at Johnson Street, across from St. George's Hall.

Sources: Buildings of Architectural Significance. Vol. V, p. 265. Kingston: City of Kingston. 1971-2004.

McKendry, Jennifer (1995) With Our Past before Us: Nineteenth-Century Architecture in the Kingston Area. Toronto: University of Toronto Press

Mika, Nick & Helma (1989) Kingston Splendid Heritage. Belleville, ON: Mika Publishing Company.

Kingston Historical Society (1969) Compendium of Information for Tour Conductors. Kingston, ON: Kingston Historical Society.

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements that express the heritage value of 126 Wellington Street include its :
- buttressed portal to each side of a raised tripartite central window on the Wellington Street front facade-
- slender columns dividing the wider central window from the flanking narrow side windows
- curvilinear Decorated Gothic transept wall along Johnson Street, featuring a large window with a mouchette motif of swirling tracery
- narrow buttresses (formerly terminating in tall spires)
- location on the north-east corner of Wellington Street at Johnson Street, across from St. George's Hall
- tripartite architectural theme associated with John Power's Gothic Revival design
- Latin cross design created by Joseph Power's 1883 schoolroom addition