King's College Cambridge

Gothic architecture was developed at a time when England and France were often ruled under the same crown. It was a style that developed simultaneously in Britain and northern Europe. This detail from King's College Cambridge shows the delicate tracery, multiple muntin bars and ogee curves distinctive of the style.

The Gothic style is also related to the many monasteries throughout Britain, closed by Henry VIII, but still with the legacy of learning, education and secluded cloistered existence.

Abbey

The Gothic Revival in England was not simply a revival of a method of working, but more a revival of all things indigenous to Britain. Ruskin, Pugin, and the others who backed the revival of the Gothic style were revolting against the mechanization of the industrial revolution. Their ideas ultimately led to the Arts and Crafts movement.

Most of the churches built during the Gothic period are still standing. These, and the residential or civic buildings that had Gothic detailing, would have had a huge impact on those emigrating to a new, foreign, and to them very barren land. In order to understand the impact of Gothic architecture on the Romantic (19th century) mind, however, something else has to be considered.

Tinturn Abbey Wales

During the 13th and 14th centuries, monasteries grew in size and importance until they were very powerful forces within the society wielding immense fortunes and huge tracts of land. By 1530, Tinturn Abbey in Wales had 20,000 sheep and over 1 million acres of land. In his attempts to unite the country, Henry VIII dissolved the monastery system in the 1530s. Of the 650 monasteries in England and Wales, a third have gone completely, another third were transformed into churches, and the final third were left in ruins.

Tinturn Abbey

Those responsible for dissolving the individual churches were happy to do so. They helped ‘redistribute' the steel, glass and wood to make their own barns and homes. The square blocks disappeared like popcorn. Within twenty miles of all of these monasteries are gorgeous old homes with very sturdy foundations. The designs made for a particular spot, however, the arches, capitals, and pinnacles, would be a dead giveaway if found in a house, and would remind the occupants that a holy site had been desecrated. Many of these were consequently left standing. It is these ruins, scattered across the country, that left a lasting impression on the followers of the Romantic movement.

Tintern Abbey alone inspired countless paintings, poems and stories by Romantics as celebrated as Turner, Wordsworth and Tennyson. In describing Tears, Idle Tears, Tennyson said he was inspired by bygone memories.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

The settler's of Upper Canada were defenseless against such lyrics. Gothic arches popped up everywhere.

Picton

Another name for Gothic Revival is Jigsaw Gothic for obvious reasons. The intricate vergeboarding, complete with crockets, kingposts, finials, and quatrefoils is really breathtaking.

This lovely home, now an Inn, emphasizes the verticality of the Gothic Revival. The second and third storey windows are remarkably tall and slender.

Madoc

This house in Madoc has beautifully detailed gables which echo the lancet arch of the window. The woodworking on the front porch is a masterpiece of design, the structural members are firmly stated, there is a quatrefoil in the center, and, again, the lancet arch is echoed. The finials popping up above the roof give the building a distinctive silhouette.

Madoc

On the gable ends of the house are lancet arches on the upper level and on the west side, shown here, a bay window with iron cresting. Both the side bay and the front have segmental arches on the windows.

The gable end is adorned with a magnificent kingpost which finished in a pendulum.The vergeboarding is held in place by ornate brackets.

The finials along the roofline give it a distinctive profile.

The house is beautifully manitianed.

Madoc

This detail of the front doorway shows a gable over a lancet arch window. The vergeboarding echoes the window profile.

The gable over the door has a quatrefoil pattern. Even the screen door is made with lancet arches and has not been destroyed by the dreaded metal screen door salesman.

Ottawa

The Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, constructed in the last decades of the 19th century, reflect the public buildings in London England and illustrate some of the features praised by John Ruskin, the foremost architectural critic of the time. The architect was allowed great liberty in the design which is a mixture of the following: Gothic, lancet arches, trefoils, tracery, Baroque, iron cresting, and Château, steeply pitched roofs, and dormers.

Notice that the voussoirs atop the windows are in a different colour from the other stone of the building giving a dichromatic effect, an element that was, again, admired by Ruskin. The windows themselves have a trefoil pattern that is repeated regardless of the arc of the window. The roof is patinated copper that looks very handsome with the red window detailing.

Simcoe

A drive through rural Ontario is likely to provide many examples of the small Gothic Revival Cottages in a variety of vernacular materials. The basic design was promoted in the 19th century by academics J.C. Loudon and A.J. Downing as well as the Canadian Farmer (1865) where it is featured complete with construction drawings for the farmer to build.

Details such as the finials, bargeboarding, and window hoods add the Gothic flavor. The scalloping under the eaves is also medieval. The door detailing, in this example, is Georgian.

House of Heads Guelph

The most impressive stone carving on a private residence in Ontario is the House of Heads in Guelph.

The shape of the house is a typical L-shaped farm house. The front gable end is adorned with head shaped corbels and label stops. The foliage shaped crockets on thehoodmold of the upper level are the best in the province.

Crockets are usually found on the raking edge of finials, pinnacles and spires. Here they are on the top edge of an ogee shaped hood mould. Above the lower windows is a cornice with a pointed arch frieze and battlementing along the top. Two heads adorn the ends.

House of Heads Guelph

This detail shows the gable end in detail.

The hoodmolds on the upper level are in the shape of ogee curves. At the end are label stops in the form of heads

Below the sill of the window is a ledge that is held up by corbels that are also in the shape of heads.

The lower window treatment has a repeated lancet arhc frieze with heads on either side also used as corbels.

Rock Castle Hamilton

Ontario is lucky to have a great many stone residences made of stone, both large and small. These are found where stone is the most available material, as in Hamilton. The natural geography of the growing industrial city allowed for impressive stone mansions to be located along the escarpment giving the properties a scenic view of the city and the lake.

One such mansion is Rock Castle built in 1848 for the owner of the Carpenter and Guerney factory. The castle is perched on the side of the escarpment. It is three stories high on the north side, and one story high on the south.

The plan is a simple center hall design, with many projecting bays and windows. A lancet arched door with balcony on the second floor has a beautiful restrained hoodmould. On the mountain side gable end there is an ogival false gable flanked by hexagonal pinnacles and crowned with heraldic feathers. Other details include a blind lancet arch and a coat of arms.

Rock Castle

A small balcony and window on the upper west side has many Gothic elements.

The door is in the shape of a lancet arch. It has a hood mold with straight label stops.

Within the top of the lancet arch is a wooden panel with interlaced lancet arches.

The door is a French door - two large casements. A small steel balcony adds the finishing touch.

The first residential Gothic Revival home in England is Strawberry Hill, built for Horace Walpole, the son of the Prime Minister.

Strawberry Hill is now part of a university, Rock Castle is now individual apartments.In both cases, the current owners take great pains to keep it looking beautiful.

Morriston

Vergeboards come in many different designs. There were pattern books available throughout the province, but many finish carpenters preferred to leave their own personal stamp on a house, or town, or county. This house in Morriston has an open vergeboard pattern. The kingpost is extremely ornate, and the window gable could be right out of Hans Christian Andersen. The plan of the house is very similar to the House of Heads in Guelph, just up the road, but the detailing is completely different.

Puslinch

Like the L-shaped home in Morriston above, Puslinch has wonderful limestone that is beautifully complemented by with wood trim. The inhabitants of this area are vigilant in their care of the 18th and 19th century buildings.

There are beautiful examples of most of the early types of Ontario architecture within two miles of the town.

Gothic Revival Cottage

The Gothic Revival Cottage was the most prevalent residential design in all of Ontario prior to the 1950s. Generally speaking, the GRC belonged to the farmer who owned the land, the design for the cottage was written up in Canadian Farmer magazine in 1865. This cottage has a segmental arch in the window within the gable. It is finished in local limestone, but not with the same finish as the more stately manors in the escarpment. This limestone is in irregular pieces and has been re-pointed many times prior over the years.

Canada Farmer

Once you recognize the style of the Gothic Revival Cottage, you will not be able to drive anywhere in Ontario, or even eastern Canada, without seeing it. There are many types of cottages in Ontario, from many different eras. These cottages follow a specific pattern and floor plan, although the exterior finish and details vary hugely across the province.

The plans, elevation and building 'directions' for the Small Gothic Cottage' were printed in canada Farmer 1865.

Gothic Revival Heaven

Limestone is the material of choice in areas along the Grand River bed.

Both Brookville and Heaven have stone cottages with white trim made from this material. In both cases, as well, the houses are situated so as to take advantage of the natural lay of the land. This is by design, not accident. The owners required a good view, access to water where possible, and natural light in as many rooms as possible.

Doctor's Office Dundas

Also in Dundas, the Doctor's Office is board and batten with wonderful molding.

Over the top widow is a drip mould. There are lancet arches, curved four-centered arches, and wonderful sills. The building has been beautifully restored.

The upper window is almost rounded, but it contains the set of double lancet arches from the Decorated period. On the lower level, the door and window are both topped with four-centered arches, as seen in the window at King's College Cambridge. The roof is topped with a finial, and the vergeboarding on the roof is a Canadian classic, the ‘droop'. Here is how Marion Macrae describes this detail in her excellent book The Ancestral Roof . "The verge boards conjure up visions of many little buttered hands happily pulling molasses taffy."

Peterborough Gothic Revival Cottage

The 'droop' can also be found on this wonderful Gothic Cottage in Peterborough.

The exterior finish on this cottage is also remarkable.

The original casement windows have been covered with storm windows for protection and climate control.

Progeston

This house has far fewer Gothic elements than that above, but it has very steeply pitched gables, gingerbread or vergeboarding, and the board and batten finish that was popular during the era. Board and batten was originally used in Gothic Revival ecclesiastical architecture - see Carpenter's Gothic - but it was also used on other structures.

The gable windows have half-rounded arches, while the first floor bays have segmental arches, showing an Italianate influence.

Elora

Aside from the lancet window and the scalloping, this building shows its Gothic favor through sheer verticality. The board and batten trim accentuates the vertical thrust of the walls. The second storey dormers are also far higher than would be found on equivalents done in one of the Classical based styles (Neoclassical or Beaux Arts Classicism).

The store front windows have very large panes and are probably not original, but the placement of the windows and the trim has been done to match the original.

Port Hope

Here is a rare example of a Gothic Revival residence using red brick instead of stone with white detailing.

The frontispiece has a stepped gable that holds the date. The front porch has a door with a low lancet arch, dripmold, and label stops. Above the porch is a balustraded balcony with twin lancet doors. The two other second storey windows have fractables. The lower floor has square dripmolds and label stops.

The walls are buttressed at the corners, and the side walls have bay windows. There are multiple chimneys on the roof suggesting that there are many fireplaces.

This is a very early and very good example of Gothic Revival in a large, well- situated house.

Vaughan

This Gothic Revival building has been modified into a residence. The second storey balcony was added much later, but the original building is clearly 19th century.

The dichromatic brick patterns are the most outstanding feature of this building. Quoins, bands, blind arches, and a lozenge within the wider gable all point to Gothic Revival. The second storey window was added later, and the roof is new. Quite possibly there were vergeboarding and finials on the original building.

Stratford

The three gable motif is a regular part of the Gothic Revival repertoire. The vergeboarding on this beautifully restored building is new

Stratford

originally the house had king posts with trefoil ornaments. Both gable finishes are effective.

King Post detail

The yellow brick characteristic of Western Ontario is here used to good effect.

Stratford

Here is a rare example of a Gothic Revival residence using red brick instead of stone with white detailing.

The gable has a rare version of the double lancet window.

claverleigh
Creemore

Outside the urban crush of the city centers stately homes have a better chance of survival. Claverleigh is one such example. Set in a clearing in the woods just outside the picturesque town of Creemore, Claverleigh is one of the very few Gothic Revival villas in Ontario. It is situated on a large country estate overlooking the Mad River. The view from the front is a gently sloping hill which leads into the valley of the river. A small flower pot lined bridge meanders across the river and leading to a horse paddock and field. The exterior finish is board-and batten which emphasizes the verticality of the design. The wood detailing is finished in bright colours, but the board and batten is left in natural wood.

Claverleigh
Gothic Revival Villa

The west elevation of Claverleigh looks like a typical Ontario Gothic Revival Cottage with a central gable containing a pointed arch window. This entrance leads to a few fenced in clearings that once protected te livestock.

claverleigh
Creemore

The South elevation is the visitor's entrance. It is composed of two massive gables with lancet arch windows, hoodmoulds, kingposts, and decorative vergeboarding. The front entrance rests between these gables. Two superimposed gables with lancet arched openings provide a front door and a window onto the front hall. The door itself is beautifully carved and protected by both the gable and a substantial wooden hoodmould.

In Early English construction, vergeboards covered and protected the ridge pole and purlins which projected out from a gable wall. In Ontario, roof framing did not project in this way, but the vergeboarding, later called bargeboarding, was maintained for aesthetic reasons.

The current owners of Claverleigh are doing a heroic job in restoring the building to its former glory. They are painstakingly replacing the intricate woodwork surrounding the doors and windows and perfectly matching the board-and-batten siding. There is a special place in heaven for people like this.

Guelph

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Guelph (1876) was designed by Joseph Connolly in the French Gothic Style or "Style Ogivale" as it is known in France. It has a large rose window, twin towers, and extravagant statuary on the front façade. The tympanum over the front entrance is also carved with religious figures. Guelph is founded on rock, and so is this cathedral.

Our Lady was meant to occupy the same position in Guelph as the medieval cathedrals occupied in France. It was meant as a civic and social center and a national monument as much as a place of worship. Situated at the top of a hill overlooking a long boulevard down to the train station, this building has presence above and beyond that of its intrinsic beauty.

Our Lady Guelph

Our Lady was meant to occupy the same position in Guelph as the medieval cathedrals occupied in Europe. It was meant as a civic and social center and a national monument as much as a place of worship. Any town, city or village in Ontario that was in existence in 1870 will have a church built in the Gothic style.

Our Lady Guelph

Twenty-first century Ontarians may have difficulty in identifying with the 19th century mind set. For most people, the church was the center not just of spiritual life, but of social life.

Well into the twentieth century, priests and ministers were revered and even adored. Before the 1950s, any male film star worth his salt was cast at least once as the romantic hero in a movie. Gregory Peck, David Niven and Montgomery Clift all had a stab at playing a priest and were no less attractive to their female fans in that role. Cary Grant was an angel. It is hard to imagine Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp doing the remake. In fact, ministers were so popular that in 1902, the Globe and Mail held a contest were participants would write a one page essay on why their minister was the most attractive man in town.

The prize was an all-expense paid trip to Florida.

St. Mary Magdalene, Picton, 1834

The first churches in Ontario were small, box shaped, with either square or round windows. The first sign of Gothic design in church architecture was the incorporation of pointed windows instead of the traditional round ones. The glazing bars of the round headed arch were simply replaced by interlaced glazing to support the pointed arch. In later architect-designed churches, this glazing was replaced by correct Gothic tracery, but many such windows can be found around the province. They became popular during what is called the Regency period, in Canada that is between 1830 and 1870, and thus the style is known as Regency Gothic.

Picton

The brick is made in a variety of colours that reflect the local clay mixture.

The bricks made in the St. Mary Magdalene Picton were made in a local oven. In 1834, there was no central brick factory and no way of transporting loads of brick from, say, Hamilton to Picton.

Paris

Regency Gothic

The Paris Plains Church located on a beautiful plain just outside Paris was called the West Dumfries Wesleyan Chapel when it was built in 1845. The Chapel itself is a basic vernacular box shape, the building was an auditory hall large enough for one preacher and a small congregation. The design of these towerless box churches was to be seen in the window and door details. This chapel is a wonderful mix of 19th century styles.

From a distance it looks like a Gothic Revival Church simply because of the lancet windows. As in the Picton church, it is a Regency Gothic design. The overall size and shape of the building, however, is not. The roof pitch is low, there is no bell tower, and no other gothic detailing, not even drip moulds. Because of this it is called Regency Gothic.

The cobblestone exterior finish is unique to the Paris area being "imported" by Levi Broughton from New York in 1838. The stonework on this chapel is particularly impressive considering that it was all done by volunteers from the congregation.

The elegant, interlacing muntin bars on the lunette and windows became popular during the Regency period and became extremely popular as can be seen on the Bolton Chapel below. The original door was replaced by a well- meaning Italianate improver some years later.

Bolton

Fieldstone was a more usual medium for country churches, and these generally illustrate exceptional trade skill as well as tasteful design. Box-shaped country chapels served the spiritual and social needs of the surrounding community for many years until advanced transportation made access to towns more available.

The shutters are shaped to fit the lancet windows and may have been closed during storms to protect the multi-paned windows. These wide lancets were introduced during the Regency period.Corner buttressing is discreet and understated to match the tower.

London

Trefoisl are used in the dormers to add light to the ceiling of this small church. It is built in the simple country style. Small abutments are found between the lancet windows.

Cobourg

St. Peter's Church in Cobourg was one of the earliest Anglican parish churches in Upper Canada. The original frame church was replaced in many stages by this brick Gothic Revival structure. The tower and front façade, shown in this image, were designed by Henry Bowler Lane. They were constructed in 1844.

The church façade is constructed around a central buttressed tower. The façade has lancet windows and doors with hood molds. A central rose window on the tower is accentuated by a horizontal band. The parapets on both the tower and the aisles are castellated.

Jordan

St, John's Anglican - Episcopal church was built on the Niagara Escarpment in 1841. Like the above, this is a typical rural church made from local stone in the picturesque medieval style. It is symmetrical, with a central processional aisle and straight backed pews.

To distinguish it as a Gothic Revival building, there is battlementing on the tall, slim, tower and diaper-latticed lancet windows. The windows are propotionally quite large for the wall space, letting in a light that floods the small church beautifully.

Tweedsmuir Memorial Presbyterian Church

Occasionally there were small churches built in the Early English style of Gothic Revival as seen in this Presbyterian church in Orangeville. The original rendering shows the kind of rural setting needed for a good BBC murder mystery. Miss Marple could easily be seen walking through the front door of this beauty with a clue in her hand. Sadly, the church sold off most of the surrounding property and there is no expanse of lawn, lich gate or ancient graveyard left for the villain to run through.

Tweedsmuir Memorial Presbyterian Church

The church itself could still be used, however, as both the architect, J.D. Kyles, and the craftsmen were meticulous in recreating Early English detailing. The plain leaded windows and rough stone walls are as authentic as any in rural England.

Tweedsmuir Memorial Presbyterian Church

There is no question that the parish was interested in reproducing an authentic British church with the intention of having it be the central focus for at least a portion of the townspeople. Trying to extract the love for this type of structure from the largely British population of this town would be as difficult as trying to get them to forget the lyrics to Molly Malone or Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond.

Perkinsfield
Carpenter's Gothic

Carpenters Gothic is a variation of the Gothic style in wood. It is also known as Fretsaw Gothic. Very popular in Lower Canada, new Brunswich and Nova Scotia, it made its way into the French communities of Northern Ontario like Perkinsfield.

Precious Blood
Sault St. Marie

The Gothic revival style continued through the 19th century in church design across Canada largely due to the writings of Ruskin and Pugin. churches are made with local materials but in a traditional European floor plan.