Description of Historic Place

Wheatwyn Church is a Municipal Heritage Property located approximately ten kilometres south and two kilometres west of Markinch in the Rural Municipality of Cupar No. 218. The property features a one-storey, fieldstone building which was constructed between 1906 and 1907.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of Wheatwyn Church resides in its status as one of the oldest remaining churches in the Rural Municipality of Cupar. In 1900, John and Elizabeth Lingner and their family came from Elmira, Ontario to homestead in the Wheatwyn (formerly Loon Creek) district of Saskatchewan. They were part of a group of German Lutherans who settled in this area, and one of the original members of the congregation of the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, which later became known as Wheatwyn Church. Lingner donated land on the northwest corner of his homestead for a church, which was adjacent to where his two young sons were buried. This cemetery would become the Wheatwyn Church Cemetery. The cornerstone of the fieldstone church was laid in August 1906 and the church dedicated on November 3, 1907. Regular church services were held here until 1961, when the congregation amalgamated with St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Markinch.

Heritage value also resides in the building’s stone construction and Gothic Revival architecture. Constructed from local fieldstone, this rectangular building includes three symmetrically-placed pointed-arch windows on each side. The entrance on the east side is topped by a cupola and small cross.

Source:
Rural Municipality of Cupar No. 218 Bylaw No. 2/05.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of Wheatwyn Church lies in the following character-defining elements:
-those elements which speak to the church’s early-twentieth century stone construction and Gothic Revival influences, including the symmetrically-placed pointed-arch windows on each side, louvered cupola, crosses, and the stone exterior;
-those elements that reflect its status as one of the oldest churches in the community, including its position on its original location.