Description of Historic Place

Calvary Temple Tower, constructed in 1893-94 as part of a large Baptist church, is a four-storey red brick bell tower now part of a modern church complex in downtown Winnipeg. The City of Winnipeg designation applies to the tower on its footprint.

Heritage Value

The soaring Calvary Temple Tower, with its many round-arched openings, high pinnacled belfry and steep pyramidal roof, is a notable Romanesque Revival-style element in the North Portage residential district, an area of central Winnipeg once occupied by several Protestant churches. The prominent tower, designed by Langley and Burke of Toronto to house the bell and main entrances of First Baptist Church, is for Winnipeg a rare monochromatic composition of red brick and red sandstone, restrained yet stately and unified in its detail. Since the mid-1980s, the tower has remained in situ, attached to its church's successor, a lower, glass and stone Christian extension wing of Calvary Temple, a Pentecostal church.

Source: City of Winnipeg Committee on Environment Minutes, March 11, 1985

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Calvary Temple Tower site include:
- its highly visible location at the intersection of Cumberland Avenue and Hargrave Street in a residential neighbourhood situated between Winnipeg's central warehouse and retail/office districts
- the tower's situation on its original site, set back from the public sidewalks and extended above the roofline of the attached modern building

Key elements that define the tower's Romanesque Revival style and other fine exterior characteristics include:
- the nearly square plan and 18-metre height, of brick construction, with the base and midsection exposed on the south and east sides and with all elevations visible from the belfry stage up
- the monochromatic finishes of red face brick and smooth- and rough-cut red sandstone
- the steep pyramidal roof, slightly flared and bracketed at the base and accompanied at the corners by three square pinnacles with pyramidal caps and a single octagonal chimney crowned by corbelled brick drip courses
- the round-arched upper openings, tall and paired on all sides of the belfry and of different sizes around windows organized in the midsection in a descending pattern of three-one-two
- the two round-arched and pedimented entranceways with identical, recessed double wooden doors and large transoms, but asymmetrical in their dimensions and elegantly arranged sandstone surrounds
- other features and accents such as the stone steps, stone quoins on the lower southeast corner, pronounced sandstone window sills, brick belt courses, hood moulding, voussoirs and decorative insets, finials atop the roof, pinnacles and south pediment, etc.

Key elements that define the tower's interior heritage spaces include:
- an archives room on the ground floor and a storage area on the second floor