Description du lieu patrimonial

The Pitt Meadows Community Church is a one-storey prefabricated wood-frame structure, with modular panels of lapped wooden siding, a front gabled roof and roof-top monitor. Angled to face the intersection of Harris and Ford Roads, the church is a landmark in the commercial and administrative core of the District of Pitt Meadows.

Valeur patrimoniale

The heritage value of the Pitt Meadows Community Church is associated with the early twentieth century development of the original town centre of Pitt Meadows. This building is a landmark component of the Harris Road historic grouping, and demonstrates the early establishment of places of worship within the community. The built form of the area dates from the time when Pitt Meadows was developing rapidly as an agricultural town and Harris Road was its commercial, administrative and community centre.

Built in 1910, this is an example of an early BC Mills Timber and Trading Company prefabricated building, and is a rare surviving example of a church built using this system. Patented in 1904, this early successful modular system could be purchased through a catalogue, shipped in pieces, and assembled on-site to provide a variety of houses, churches, schools and banks. The component panels were assembled from short mill ends of lumber that could be bolted together. Vertical joints between the panels were covered by narrow battens, which gave these buildings their characteristic appearance. The system proved ideal for smaller developing communities, as skilled labourers were not required for their construction, and was widely used throughout western Canada until 1910. The Pitt Meadows Community Church is one of two surviving BC Mills prefabricated buildings in Pitt Meadows, the other being the McMyn/Masson Residence.

Demonstrating the diversity and evolution of the early settlement, this church was originally built by the Seventh Day Adventists. William Manson, a member of the Maple Ridge Dyking District and later Member of Parliament, donated a seventy-six hectare property to the Adventist cause. This allowed the construction of the Manson Industrial Academy, a sixteen-room co-educational training school facing Advent Street, and this church further to the south. By the end of the First World War, many of the original families had moved away from the area, and the Academy was closed. In 1922, the church was sold to the Community Church Society, which continues to operate the building today.

Source: Department of Development Services, District of Pitt Meadows.

Éléments caractéristiques

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Pitt Meadows Community Church include its:
- angled to face the prominent intersection of Harris and Ford Roads
- ecclesiastical form, scale and massing as expressed by its one-storey height, rectangular plan, central entry porch, and polygonal apse
- cedar-shingled, front-gabled roof
- typical features of B.C. Mills prefabricated buildings, such as modular panels of lapped wooden siding, narrow vertical battens over the panel joints, and cedar shingles in the gable ends
- additional exterior features, such as exposed rafter tails, triangular eave brackets, beam across the front gable, octagonal louvered roof-top monitor with shingle-clad bellcast roof capped with a turned, wooden finial, and open front porch with gable roof, collar beam and square columns
- regular, symmetrical fenestration, including wooden sash casement windows on the side elevations with coloured glass transoms, wooden sash casement windows in triple assembly in the front gable above the central entry, and leaded stained glass windows in the apse with geometric patterning
- original interior features, such as tongue-and-groove wooden panelling on the walls and gambrel ceiling, panelled doors, and fir flooring