St. Anne's Chapel is a

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently. Often a chapel of ea ...

Fredericton Fredericton (; ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The city is situated in the west-central portion of the province along the Saint John River, which flows west to east as it bisects the city. The river is the do ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

. Constructed between 1846 and 1847, it was designed by British-born architect Frank Wills. St. Anne's Chapel is a

National Historic Site of Canada National Historic Sites of Canada (french: Lieux historiques nationaux du Canada) are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment An environment minister (sometimes minister of the environment or secretary of t ...

History

St. Anne's Chapel was built at the direction of

John Medley John Medley, (19 December 1804 – 9 September 1892), was a Church of England clergyman who became the first bishop of Fredericton in 1845. In 1879 he succeeded Ashton Oxenden as Metropolitan of Canada. Education and family John Medley was bo ...

soon after his arrival in Canada in 1845 as the first Bishop of the

Anglican Diocese of Fredericton The Diocese of Fredericton is a diocese of the Ecclesiastical Province of Canada of the Anglican Church of Canada. Established in 1845, its first bishop was John Medley, who served until his death on September 9, 1892. Its cathedral and diocesan ...

. Its architect, Frank Wills, was brought to Canada by Bishop Medley from

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...

, England in 1846 to work on Christ Church Cathedral. Located at the corner of Westmorland and George Streets in the west end of the city, St. Anne's was intended as a chapel of ease in which services could be held until construction of the Cathedral was completed. The chapel's cornerstone was laid in May 1846 and it was consecrated on March 18, 1847. Bishop Medley himself paid most of the construction costs. Christ Church Cathedral was completed in 1853 and in 1854 the chapel became Christ Church (Parish) Church, although it continued to be commonly known as St. Anne's. With the completion next to it of a much larger church building in 1962, St. Anne's became a chapel once more. St. Anne's Chapel of Ease was declared a National Historic Site of Canada in 1989. The designation encompasses only the 1847 chapel, not the adjoining 1962 structure.

Architectural significance

St. Anne's Chapel was the first church in North America constructed according to the principles of the

Ecclesiological Society The Cambridge Camden Society, known from 1845 (when it moved to London) as the Ecclesiological Society,Histor ...

, with which both Bishop Medley and the architect, Frank Wills, had been associated before coming to Canada. As such, it was intended by Bishop Medley to be a model for future parish churches in New Brunswick. It has been authoritatively described as the finest Gothic Revival church of its size and kind in North America. The hammer-dressed grey

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

building, which measures only 74 by 21 feet, comprises a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and a

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

with a carved butternut screen. The interior roof,

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...

and open bench pews are also crafted of local butternut. The interior is richly decorated, with multicoloured Minton

encaustic tile Encaustic tiles are ceramic tiles in which the pattern or figure on the surface is not a product of the glaze but of different colors of clay. They are usually of two colours but a tile may be composed of as many as six. The pattern appears inla ...

s on the nave and chancel floors and the

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for ex ...

. The stained glass windows in the nave were obtained from the Beer studio in Exeter, while the triplet window in the chancel was made by

William Warrington William Warrington, (1796–1869), was an English maker of stained glass windows. His firm, operating from 1832 to 1875, was one of the earliest of the English Medieval revival and served clients such as Norwich and Peterborough Cathedrals. W ...

of London. The entrance is through a small porch with ornate ironwork hinges and decoration on the doors. The churchyard is surrounded by a low stone wall incorporating a

lychgate A lychgate, also spelled lichgate, lycugate, lyke-gate or as two separate words lych gate, (from Old English ''lic'', corpse), also ''wych gate'', is a gateway covered with a roof found at the entrance to a traditional English or English-style ch ...

. The new chapel's innovative design was controversial at the time, with some parishioners objecting to the inclusion of a chancel with a screen, which symbolically separated the priest from the laity. Also, no

pew rents A pew () is a long bench seat or enclosed box, used for seating members of a congregation or choir in a church, synagogue or sometimes a courtroom. Overview The first backless stone benches began to appear in English churches in the thirt ...

were charged for the open bench pews. This deprived the parish of a source of income, as well as taking away a mark of status from pew owners.

References

External links

Christ Church (Parish) Church official websiteSt. Anne's Chapel of Ease
a
Fredericton Heritage Trust
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Annes Chapel, Fredericton, New Brunswick Churches completed in 1847 19th-century Anglican church buildings in Canada Anglican church buildings in New Brunswick National Historic Sites in New Brunswick Buildings and structures in Fredericton Gothic Revival church buildings in Canada Tourist attractions in Fredericton Churches on the National Historic Sites of Canada register 1847 establishments in New Brunswick