Description of Historic Place

Christ Church is a small white church at the corner of Church and Pleasant Streets in Guysborough, beside the village's oldest cemetery and the community's Cenotaph. This municipal designation covers the church and surrounding land.

Heritage Value

Christ Church is the third of that name on this site. The first was built in 1790, and was visited by Bishop Charles Inglis in 1797. It blew down in 1811, and was replaced at once by the second Christ Church. The current church, erected between 1877-78, is valued for its Gothic architecture and its continued role for the Anglican community for whom it still serves as a place of worship.

There are no longer regular services, but Christ Church still serves for weddings and funerals, and for an annual Heritage Service. The adjoining cemetery has the graves of Guysborough's eighteenth-century pioneers including the first clergyman, Rev. Peter de la Roche, who ministered in English, German and French to settlers of all religious backgrounds. Also buried on the property are most of Guysborough's founding fathers, including Thomas (King) Cutler, Col. Joseph Marshall, Patrick Patton, Robert Hartshorne, and others.

Christ Church displays many elements common to churches of its age in Nova Scotia, combining both Classical and Gothic elements in its clapboard exterior elements and structure. It has a symmetrical facade with a central entrance and symmetrical windows. A square-sided frontispiece rises to a bell tower and a modest steeple. A large stained glass triptych window adorns the rear façade of the chancel.

Sources: Municipality of the District of Guysborough Heritage Registration documents, Christ Church file #568, and Chris Cook's "Historic Guysborough, a Picture of Home."

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of Christ Church include:

- the chancel with a stained glass rear window;
- Classical elements, including the symmetry and balance in shape, form and placement of windows; three-bay façade with central, double-door entry in front-facing gable end; prominent pilasters as cornerboards;
- Gothic elements, including the symmetrical windows and window vents, central Gothic-arched entrance door and steeply-pitched roof;
- frontispiece rising through pediments and the roofline to square bell-tower topped with steeple;
- stacked rock foundation with cut granite top;
- the cemetery next to the church.