Description du lieu patrimonial

Kenlis Methodist Church is a Municipal Heritage Property on a 0.8 ha parcel of land located in the Rural Municipality of Abernethy 186 approximately 11 km southwest of the Village of Abernethy. The property features a one-storey brick church on a fieldstone foundation built in 1896.

Valeur patrimoniale

The heritage value of Kenlis Church lies in its status as the only surviving landmark of the former Hamlet of Kenlis. The building stands as a tribute to the memory of the area's pioneers who founded the hamlet and built the church. The church was constructed in 1896 by the local Methodist congregation who collected the fieldstones for the foundation. The Methodist and later, the United Church, continued to use the building for regular services until 1972. Today the church is still used for occasional services and as a community gathering place. In the past fifty years all other buildings from the hamlet have been removed and the Kenlis Church stands as the lone building commemorating the founders of Kenlis.

The heritage value of the property also lies in the church’s architecture. The building is influenced by the Gothic Revival style, visible in its stained glass windows with pointed arches, the steep gable roof, buttresses, and the decorative woodwork on the façade that emulates stone tracery. The church is unusually large for rural churches of the period and its construction in substantial materials such as stone and brick, reflects the optimism and expectation of future growth held by the community.

Source:

Rural Municipality of Abernethy No. 186 Bylaw 85-3.

Éléments caractéristiques

The heritage value of the Kenlis Methodist Church resides in the following character-defining elements:
-those elements that honour the memory of the area's pioneers, such as the location of the church on its original site in the former Hamlet of Kenlis and the field stone foundation;
-those elements that reflect the Gothic Revival style of architecture, such as stained glass windows with pointed arches, the steep gable roof, buttresses and the decorative woodwork.