Description of Historic Place

The Warren Baptist Church, built circa 1862, is a modest, wooden, one-storey country church built in the form of a traditional meeting house. The church sits on its original site at a bend in Route 6 on the rural east side of Amherst, Nova Scotia, and overlooks trees, farms and fields. The municipal designation includes the building, property and cemetery.

Heritage Value

The value of the Warren Baptist Church is found in its being representative of a typical Baptist country church built in Cumberland County during the mid to late nineteenth century. The symmetrical, wooden church has a medium-pitched roof and a pedimented front gable. The characteristic symmetry is evident in the church’s three-bay façade and the three large rectangular windows that line each side of the boxy church. It was built in the meeting house tradition, and it is modestly and simply decorated with Classical Revival and Gothic Revival elements. Its Classical Revival temple-like architecture is adorned with a wide frieze, and heavy, prominent pilasters framing the two entries and acting as corner boards. Of note are the Gothic Revival subtle labels crowning every window, and the diamond-shaped tracery decorating the triangular window in pedimented front gable. The triangular shape of this window is echoed in the pointed arch above the two front entries, and the upper edges of the three triangles are accentuated with scalloped bargeboard.

Source: “Heritage Properties County, Warren Baptist Church” File, Cumberland County Museum

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements of the Warren Baptist Church include:

- original site, form and massing;
- wood construction;
- original clapboard siding;
- one-storey;
- two wide-set entries in gable end;
- traditional meeting house elements such as simple, symmetric form and little ornamentation;
- cemetery containing historic markers to the side and rear of building.

Character-defining Classical Revival elements of the Warren Baptist Church include:

- medium-pitched gable roof and pedimented front gable;
- return eave on back gable;
- wide frieze;
- bold, simple frames accenting large rectangular windows;
- prominent pilasters framing entries and acting as corner boards;
- wide frieze.

Character-defining Gothic Revival elements of the Warren Baptist Church include:

- symmetric three-bay façade;
- triangle-shaped window in front pediment;
- bargeboard decorating the upper lines of the triangle window and the door frames;
- labels decorating windows.