Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing it, between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time), by using the blue link-up button below.
St. John’s Anglican Church – Lunenburg
We’re back with more doors from beautiful Lunenburg, Nova Scotia this week.
All of the ones in this batch come from the same building, which of course usually means one thing: Church doors – whooohooo!
Built in 1753-54 St. John’s Anglican Church is the second oldest protestant church in Canada, after St. Paul’s in Halifax which was built a few years earlier.
It is considered one of the country’s best examples of Carpenter Gothic architecture, a style that uses wood rather than the traditional stone for all of its architectural features.
Where there is wood however, there is always a danger of fire and after almost 250 years St. John’s was finally hit with its own devastating fire back in November of 2001 when a late night blaze tore through the rafters and the upper portion of the structure.
Being both a provincial and national heritage building meant that some serious decisions had to be made about the building’s future. Thankfully instead of tearing down what was left and building a new church, the congregation chose to undertake a seven million dollar project to restore and replicate, in order to have the rebuilt church resemble the original as much as possible.
Despite the fact that I was unable to capture the main entrance doors, I did find a charming variety of interesting doors on St. John’s.
At the time of our visit there was a concert going on and since it was a hot summer day the main doors were left open to allow air to circulate – hence no photos of the inside either 😦
But as you can see, a full walk-around allowed for some fun discoveries.
And here are my two favourite little finds from my walk-around. The larger one seems to be some kind of chute access door and the much narrower one on the bottom, well I have no idea – but it sure is cute though.
Let me know if you have any ideas.
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An impressive building. It looks as if it had made itself pretty since it heard you were coming. 🙂
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Yay for symmetry (except one upper spire being larger than the other)!! What a beautiful church. I love Gothic architecture! 🙂
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What a sight to behold! I do quite like the doors with large hinges that are a feature in themselves!
And those last two certainly are cute. No idea what that bottom one would be for, though. Do church mice only exist in children’s stories, or might this church have some too…?
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I don’t know about the church mice but I do like your theory 😀
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Interesting all the different shapes of the doors (and windows too). I like the curliques on the doors. I have black ornamental simulated wrought-iron strapping on my garage but it pales in comparison to this door strapping with all its flourishes. That’s a very beautiful old church.
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Thanks Linda. I agree, it is a beautiful old church 🙂
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Love the b/w look of this church, Norm. Those hinges are fabulous, too. Great that such an old building has been preserved.
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Thanks Jean. Yes it is wonderful that they were able to rebuild 🙂
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Beautiful church. It doesn’t look real from afar. It looks like it was a Lego church. Love the doors too.
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You’re right, it does look a bit like a Lego church 🙂
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nice variety of doors and 7 million – whew – but I think it was a good choice.
wonder what caused the 2001 fire?
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I’m not sure the cause of the fire was ever determined.
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What a lovely little church. It almost looks like a façade that has been built for a movie set. Lots of whimsical touches.
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Thank you. It does have quite a unique look to it 🙂
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Charmed!!
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Thank you 🙂
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Wood makes all the difference, too! I love this, Love the lines. All the lines. It’s gorgeous, impressive, but the wood makes it so much warmer and more welcoming. All those curves and lines. Truly a great doors post.
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Thanks Joey. Yes the lines indeed. I kinda think the black-painted trim highlights those lines even more.
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I agree!
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Glad you mentioned what Carpenters Gothic is – I don’t know if there’s any in Europe like that. The black trim makes it look dainty and fairy tale like:) The doors were open – does that mean they did not have air conditioning inside (which would be normal in that time)? Beautiful outside – hope you can catch the inside another time. Am curious if it would be similar to a stone Gothic church:)
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No air conditioning in these old wooden buildings. I assume there are similarities with stone Gothic: arches, parapets etc….
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That’s an impressive church.
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Thank you Jim 🙂
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Looks beautiful and with the cold weather it has been really loved and taken care of
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Thank you Alice and welcome to Thursday Doors 🙂
By the way, I think my comment on your blog post was caught by the spam filters. You may need to go to the comments section of your Admin dashboard and free me from spam prison.
Cheers and thanks again for playing along this week!
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Those hinges, and dark wood trim!! SWOON! It’s gorgeous. I’m so glad they found the money to restore and rebuild it.
Regarding the doors the bigger of the two could be a coal or ice chute, and the littlest one some kind of vent?
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Thanks Deborah. I think you might be right on the two in the last shot 🙂
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Wow! We’re actually going to Nova Scotia in September so I look forward with baited breath to hearing all about it! Thanks.
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That’s awesome. It’s my favorite Canadian province to visit for vacation. I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time there.
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Thanks for introducing me to a new architectural style. I like it a lot! It looks kind of Russian, somehow. Great door pictures, too–lots of arches. ~grin~
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Thanks Marian. I hadn’t thought of this style as Russian but now that you mention it, I do believe I’ve seen a number of churches in more remote parts of Russia that resemble this style. Good observation 🙂
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Black and white, simple and sophisticated. Pity the rector faded away
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Yes, I assume they’re looking for a new one at the moment 😉
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Coal bin? Or was coal ever used in these older buildings.
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Yes, thank you. The larger one was likely the coal chute, but its the smaller narrower one at the very bottom that has me scratching my head.
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Norm, that one is for the church mice.
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THAT is what church should look like (not like the mother ship from planet Zork).
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Yes I hear the church designs on Zork are….wait for it…wait for it…
Out of This World!!!
😀
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It’s nice to see a wooden church. White looks really nice in the sunlight.
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And I had the perfect clear blue sky to shoot against. Some days are good ones 😉
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What a fabulous looking church!
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I thought so too – thanks Jackie 🙂
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Beautiful church. Wonderful architecture. You always have amazing pictures.
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Thank you!
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The curled iron hinges on the doors blew me away. Gorgeous church, Norm.
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Yes those ornate hinges really caught my eye as well 🙂
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🙂
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What an unusual and magnificent structure and the doors don’t let it down. Wonderful find, Norm.
janet
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Thank you Janet. I had taken some shots on a previous but rushed visit a few years back but I wasn’t happy with them. This time I took the time to explore it at a leisurely pace and I believe it payed off.
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I’m glad you did.
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What a beautiful building !
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I agree! Thank you Helen 🙂
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Thank you for the introduction to Carpenter Gothic – not a style I’d heard of before. The delicacy of the details and the black lining around the white boards make the first image look almost like a pen and ink sketch rather than a photo of a solid building.
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It’s not a style we see too often here either. I suspect mostly because many of them don’t last very long 😉
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And, this post is an example of why you are our Thursday Doors leader! This is one amazingly beautiful Church, wonderful architecture, great hardware, magnificent arches, and a great collection of tiny to big doors all with handsome trim. We lived in a condo once that had a small door like that. In the spring, we replaced it with a vent that allowed the air under the unit to circulate – my best guess here. Impressive, Norm. Thank you for sharing.
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Thanks Judy. Yes a vent seems to be a logical guess.
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This building is magnificent! The opening photo is so striking. With the tiny cloud in the perfectly blue sky, it almost looks like a painting.
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Thanks Joanne. Yes it was a perfect sky to offset against the bright white of the building.
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It’s amazing to see such remarkable details done in wood. I’m so glad they decided to rebuild – that had to be a huge undertaking. I love the doors that you found and the chutes. I also like the sharp contrast brought out by the paint. Oh, and those hinges are magnificent.
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Thanks Dan. The rebuild took 4 years and involved some interesting discoveries. I was going to cover it a bit but was afraid the post would end up being too long. If you’re interested here’s a link to an old Discovery Chanel Canada report on what they found. https://youtu.be/l6nBvqz9UwY
Side note: one of our local dealers sold them the planer you see being used in the video 😀
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Lovely church – I haven’t seen anything like it before.
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Thank you. We don’t see this style too often here either.
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