Saint Peter’s, Purdy

Neither the place name Bangor nor Purdy appears in traditional accounts or maps of the parishes and missions of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa. It is as if the Purdys of this world exist in order to test the resources of an archives for determining when and where they existed.  Let the hunt for information begin.

Purdy (also known as Bangor) is first mentioned as an outstation of Combermere in the 1886 Synod Journal of the Diocese of Ontario.  In the Ottawa Synod Journal of 1899, we learn that services were being held in the schoolhouse at Bangor.  While the Reverend James D. McCallum was the Incumbent at Combermere from 1897 to 1900, we learn that a house of worship began construction at Bangor.  In 1901, Bark Lake and Bangor were transferred to the Mission of Killaloe, however the following year they were transferred back to Combermere.

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It was not until 1909 that we are able to surmise the patron saint of this worship community, for in the 1909 Synod Journal mention is made of a Saint Peter’s Church in the Parish of Combermere. By a process of elimination, we must conclude that that was the name of the church at Bangor.  It had taken over a dozen years for this small worship community to complete their house of worship at Bangor, as the Synod Journal reports that it “was almost finished” by 1913.

And here we see it, as photographed a century later.  The initial impression is of a vernacular structure, an impression that is created by the ordinary double-sash windows in the side walls.  If one is tempted to ask if there could possibly be a more vernacular house of worship in the history of the Diocese, a few details force us to take a second look.

First, for all its apparent simplicity, Saint Peter’s, Purdy is not simply set down foursquare with the closest road, but instead is located in a picturesque hillside setting as was becoming a notable feature for many rural churches at the turn of the nineteenth century.  Second, the fairly steep pitch of the roof was a major indication of its purpose as a house of worship.  

Perhaps the most significant exterior detail was the relationship of the entrance porch at one end of a low wall as had become standard Anglican design for most churches from the 1860s to the turn of the century.  The width of the doorway in the entrance porch anticipated the holding of community funerals here.

Equally telling is the gable wall we see here.  The shingles used in the gable are a form of enrichment for the chancel end of this humble house of worship, distinguishing it from the clapboards used in the rest of the walls. As simple as the window above the altar may seem to us, it hearkens back to the Palladian or Venetian windows set above the altars in the earliest churches of the Diocese of Ottawa, with their central light normally featuring a rounded arch.    

In 1931, the house of worship at Purdy, as it came to be called, was sold due to the removal of Anglican inhabitants from that neighbourhood. After that year, it ceased to be recorded in the pages of the Synod Journal.

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