Description of Historic Place

Griswold United Church, built in 1896 for a Presbyterian congregation, is a moderately sized fieldstone structure set on a spacious lot near the centre of Griswold. The site's provincial designation applies to the church and its grounds.

Heritage Value

Griswold United Church, a Gothic Revival-style building with rugged stonework, pointed windows and a functional but artfully detailed interior, recalls the small Presbyterian parish churches of Scotland and England. In Manitoba, it is one of the fullest expressions of that tradition. Construction of the substantial yet picturesque fieldstone structure was an ambitious project for a relatively small congregation and speaks to the optimism of a growing and prosperous pioneer community. The church remains a gathering place and focal point for the area and is its most distinctive landmark.

Source: Manitoba Heritage Council Minute, October 24, 1989

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Griswold United Church site include:
- its location on Patterson Street in the centre of Griswold and its placement, facing east, moderately close to the street, on a spacious lot with several mature trees and bushes on the sides

Key exterior elements that define the church's Gothic Revival style include:
- the simple rectangular form set beneath a steeply pitched, gable roof, with short cross gables centred on the side elevations and symmetrically ordered fenestration
- the distinctive cut fieldstone masonry composed of large stones in varying shades of grey encased in white mortar and set upon a base course of finely cut sandstone blocks underlain by a stone foundation
- prominent Gothic features such as fieldstone corner and wall buttresses capped by sandstone, deeply inset pointed windows with finely cut sandstone surrounds, wooden casings and panes of pebbled glass, Y-tracery in large double windows on the side elevations and wooden bargeboards decorated with trefoils in the four gable ends, including dark blue incised trefoils at the front and rear
- the picturesque main facade, including dark blue fish-scale shingles in the recessed gable and wooden doors topped by a multi-paned transom window and set in a buttressed Gothic arch
- other features and details such as wooden Celtic crosses on the gable ends, additional bargeboard trim with pendants at the front and rear, narrow bands of brick under the eaves, etc.

Key elements that define the building's functional interior include:
- its one-room plan, with a high truncated ceiling, three sections of pews and a low chancel raised three steps from floor level and fronted by a railing of metal hung with a dark curtain and supported on white-painted wooden posts
- the white-painted walls and ceiling with wainscotting of striated wood panels in a dark brown finish, matched with the interior of the doors
- fixtures and details such as the oak pews with cast-iron ends featuring a Christian motif, oak pulpit, pendant light fixtures, a single large grate above the basement furnace, two smaller grates and a series of small holes in the floor for ventilation