Church of the Good Shepherd Plantagenet

Such was the verticality of the design of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Plantagenet, shown here, that the length of this frame house of worship appears to be less than its height.  It is difficult for us now to judge the original intentions of the builders of this Anglican church, for in this lone surviving image of it, we see it at the end of its life as a place of worship, with evidence that the structure had been decaying for some years before the photographer happened along.      

The earliest mention of this place is when a mission deputation visited Plantagenet Mills in 1864. Land was obtained from Peter McMartin for a church, and the frame walls of Good Shepherd Church arose in 1875. So difficult were finances that 21 years elapsed before this small house of worship was consecrated by Bishop Charles Hamilton on 15 December 1896—one of the first churches to be consecrated by him as the first Bishop of Ottawa.

In 1864 there had been talk of a Mission of Plantagenet. Three years later Plantagenet joined the Parish of Hawkesbury which had outlying stations at Alfred and L’Orignal. Building this church raised hopes, and in 1876 Plantagenet became a parish in its own right, with outstations at Alfred, Caledonia Springs (from 1883), Fenaghvale (from 1879 to 1881, and again from 1883 to 1904), Maxville (from 1903) and Ross’s Schoolhouse (1903-1904).  People moving away out west further weakened the small congregation at Plantagenet by 1905.

Small the Plantagenet church may have been, but even for a small, rural congregation no one could ever have accused it of being humble. It was built at the height of interest in the High Victorian Gothic Revival style. If there were not sufficient funds to build a tower and spire, no matter.  By locating this house of worship on high land, and by exaggerating its gables to three times the height of the side walls, the unknown designer of this building effectively turned the end walls into steeples, effectively making them appear to be huge arrows pointing to Heaven.

For lack of surviving interior photographs, we must imagine how the interior of this church was arranged.  It would appear that the huge, pointed window in the gable on the left side of this view was the west window in the narthex of the church, with the chimney above it confirming that this was so.  If so, the low entrance porch was located very close to the chancel within this small rectangular house of worship, whereas in most Anglican churches the entry usually was located closer to the narthex.  In contrast to the horizontal clapboards in the main structure, much thinner boards in the porch and porch doors were placed diagonally to accent the diagonal design of a building that was all roof.    

In 1917, Plantagenet transferred to the Parish of Fenaghvale which had outstations at Alfred, Caledonia Springs, Plantagenet and Ross’s Schoolhouse.  In 1921, local parishes were rearranged and Saint John’s, Plantagenet became part of the Parish of Hawkesbury again, with outstations located at Alfred, Caledonia Springs and L’Orignal. The church appears to have been secularized by 1923, with the property sold that August to Joseph Stanislas Gratton, with special arrangements made concerning the adjacent burial ground.  

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