Description of Historic Place

Holy Trinity Anglican Church is a large, brick, cruciform plan church building constructed between 1866 and 1870 in the Gothic Revival style. It is located on William Street, near the main business district of the town of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Municipal heritage designation applies to the building and land.

Heritage Value

Holy Trinity Anglican Church is valued for its role in the Anglican community of Yarmouth, for its historical associations with Rev. Ranna Cossitt, the parish’s first rector and with Rev. Roy Campbell, designer of the church. It is also valued for its Gothic Revival architecture and stained glass windows.

The first Episcopal/ Anglican church in Yarmouth was built around 1793 on Main Street, almost directly west of the site of the present Anglican church. The building served other purposes as well, including as a hospital when an epidemic struck the town; however in 1799 the building was sold and moved, though a panelled door from the church was removed and is preserved in the present parish hall. For the next several years services were held in the loft of a shed on Baker’s Wharf, the present site of the ferry terminal, where it is said the first communion service was held in 1806.

The first rector of the Anglican parish in Yarmouth, appointed by Bishop Charles Inglis, was Rev. Ranna Cossitt, who came here from Sydney, Cape Breton, where he had organized and built St. George's Church circa 1786. Rev. Cossitt was known to be of a bold, willful and temperamental nature, often involved in disputes with both church and government, but after settling in Yarmouth and officially organizing the Anglican parish, he served a dedicated and most successful pastorate for ten years before passing away at his home in the nearby village of Arcadia on March 13, 1815. He was buried under the chancel of the church he had errected in the south end of town in 1807, where a monument on his grave still remains in the old Anglican cemetery. That church was the first Holy Trinity Anglican Church in the town, and it served this function until 1874 when it was taken down and moved to Arcadia. However, some of the furnishings from the old church, including the marble font, some hangings and linens and the bell which had been brought from England in 1835, were given to the new church.

The architect for this building was Rev. J. R. Roy Campbell, who had trained as an architect as well as a priest in England, and was the Curate of Holy Trinity Church. A brochure printed about the church says of him “ He was an enthusiast for the neo-gothic movement that parallelled the Oxford Movement in its enthusiasm for the medieval Catholic heritage of Anglicanism.” Rev. Campbell was also the author of an extensive and authoritative history of Yarmouth County, which is still considered among the most reliably factual local histories.

The first sod for this present Gothic Revival style structure was turned in 1866, the ground excavated in 1867, cornerstone laid on August 20, 1868, the walls built in 1869 and the tower and spire completed in 1870. The building was consecrated on August 4, 1872 with a congregation of more than 800 present. The church is constructed in the cruciform plan, and heavily buttressed. The church is constructed of brick with New Brunswick freestone trim. The many beautiful stained glass windows are also noteworthy, most of them having been funded by individuals or family groups of the parish in memory of deceased family members.

Source: Registered Heritage Property files, Town of Yarmouth, NS.

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of Holy Trinity Anglican Church include:

- location in a residential neighbourhood near main business district;
- proximity to four other registered heritage properties;
- narrow setback on a large lot.

The character-defining elements of the Gothic Revival architecture of Holy Trinity Anglican Church include:

- brick construction with freestone trim;
- cruciform plan massing;
- castellated tower at southwest corner;
- large stained glass windows;
- paired and single lancet windows;
- oculus window in front gable;
- buttressed walls.