Description of Historic Place

Kildonan Presbyterian Church
sits in a large, well-treed property on the northern outskirts of Winnipeg. The church, of solid limestone
and now covered with stucco, was completed in 1854. It is surrounded by a historically important cemetery
containing the graves of some of the Selkirk settlers, Manitoba's earliest European farmers, and
many of their descendents. The City of Winnipeg's Grade I designation applies to the building on
its footprint and the interior.

Heritage Value

Kildonan Presbyterian Church, built in 1852-54, is the second-oldest standing church
in Winnipeg, and the Mother Church of Western Canadian Presbyterianism. The church served some of the
province's earliest European settlers, including many of the Selkirk settlers who arrived in the
early 1800s and who inaugurated the first halting steps toward the development of the province's
agricultural economy. Built almost 40 years after their arrival, Kildonan Presbyterian Church was a significant
and proud achievement for these pioneers. In the City of Winnipeg the church is one of the few remaining
tangible connections to this significant group. The structure, the work of well-known Red River Settlement-era
stonemason Duncan McRae, is an early example of the Gothic Revival style, a familiar form of Protestant
church architecture well known by the settlers, whose small parish churches in Scotland were the models
here. In this instance, given the pioneer circumstances and the tenets of Presbyterianism, which called
for restraint and even austerity in their buildings, the result is a modest interpretation of the style.
Inside, the church retains most of its original features and details, all in good condition.

Source:
City of Winnipeg Historical Buildings Committee Meeting, October 14, 1993

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the important locational characteristics of Kildonan Presbyterian
Church include:
- its placement on a large treed lot, facing south, surrounded on all sides by the gravestones
of the church cemetery

Key elements that define the church's modest Gothic Revival style include:
-
the simplicity of the design with its rectangular form, gable roof and large pointed windows on the east
and west sides and in the balcony level of the south-facing gable end
- the contrasting textures of the
rough-hewn stone walls, stuccoed in 1921, and the smooth-cut stone quoins and accenting around the windows

Key
qualities that define the church's modest, but eloquent interior include:
- the spacious uninterrupted
nave, with truncated gable ceiling and a small balcony at the south end with narrow access stairs
- the
arrangement of the space, with aisles leading to the chancel
- the palette of textures and colours, including
light-hued plaster walls, planked ceiling painted white, simple square columns supporting the balcony,
painted white, and contrasting woodwork stained dark