Thursday Doors – January 23, 2020

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 your link in the comments below, anytime between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). 

Église Saint-Esprit – Saint-Esprit, Québec

There’s nothing like the charm of an elegant small-town church, and even doubly so in winter 🙂

While out on a recent drive that netted me last week’s post of some lovely barns and farm scenes I saw a steeple off in the distance.

It was calling out to me.

So I followed the roads that took me towards the pointy tower that stood out on the horizon, all the way into the sleepy little town of Saint Esprit.

Construction on the first church of Saint Esprit was built on this site in 1801 when the Archbishop of Québec gave his thumbs up for the local parishioners to build on a piece of land reserved for the church right in the center of town.

It was a smaller, simpler structure than the one found here today. The walls were made of field stones collected from local farmer’s fields, and it had a simple shingle roof.

Construction on that first church took a number of years, with additions and expansions going on until 1823.

In 1841 a tornado tore down the steeple and bell tower, and then near the end of the century a major fire and resulting water damage led the parish to the decision to demolish the structure in 1901.

Construction on the new church began the following year. The town had grown a lot in a 100 years so the second was much bigger. Built in the neo-gothic style with a durable galvanized tin roof, it was considered one of the nicest churches in the Joliette Diocese north of Montréal.

Did I mention it was a cold day?

Unfortunately fire struck again in the overnight hours on May 9th, 1931 and the 2nd church burned to the ground.

Almost immediately plans were set in place and funds were raised to rebuild, and less than a year later the cornerstone was put in place for the building we see today.

Built at a cost of $84,000 it took local builders less than 2 years to finish the structure in 1933, though artisans were brought in from Montréal and from around the province to complete the interior decorations for several more years after the initial construction.

Being a rural farming community town growth has stalled at around 2000, so the current church should be more than big enough to meet demand for years to come.

The Québec countryside is dotted with small towns like Saint Esprit and almost every town has a church of its own.

More than enough to keep me busy with doors for many Thursdays to come.

Our lastest cold spell has broken so if all goes well I’ll be taking advantage of the milder temps to head into town for a thorough doorscursion this weekend.

In the meantime as always, I thank you for stopping in 🙂

Have a door post of your own that you’d like to share this week? Please add your link in the comments section below. You have until noon eastern North American time on Saturday.

And please, take a few minutes to visit some of the Thursday Door posts shared by our other contributors.

Want to join in on the fun and share your own Thursday Doors post with other door lovers? Then simply add the link to your post in the comments section below.