Place Description
This High Victorian Gothic style church is located in the rural setting of Tryon near the Tryon Peoples' Cemetery. It features a steeply pitched gable roof, low walls with faux buttresses, and an ornate corner tower with an octagonal spire.
Why is this place important?
The South Shore United Church is valued for its High Victorian Gothic style; its historical association with William Critchlow Harris; and for its association with the history of Methodism in PEI.
Tryon had originally been settled by United Empire Loyalists. The first Methodist preacher to come to the Tryon area was Rev. William Grandin, who arrived from Saint John, New Brunswick in May of 1792. The present church is the third building to exist on the property. In 1817, a small chapel was built on land leased from John Lord. By 1839, a larger structure replaced it. In 1881, the Island architect, William Critchlow Harris, was commissioned to design the current building. This was Harris' first church design.
He chose the High Victorian Gothic style with a steeply pitched gable roof and low walls with buttresses. The tower with corner buttresses and an octagonal spire was added to the side of the nave. The tower was copied at the Bedeque Methodist (later United) Church.
The church was dedicated on October 22, 1882. In 1907, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the building was celebrated with two days of events. Tryon Methodist became part of the United Church of Canada in 1925.
In 1992, it was designated a National Historic Site. The Moderator of the United Church of Canada, Rt. Rev. Walter Farquharson, was present at a service commemorating the bicentennial of the first Methodist services in Tryon.
Beginning in 2006, the former congregations of Bonshaw, Hampton, and Victoria were amalgamated with Tryon to form the South Shore United Church. Elements of the their former buildings were incorporated into a new extension on the Tryon building. These included stained glass windows and a thistle weathervane.
Source: Culture and Heritage Division, PEI Department of Communities, Cultural Affairs and Labour, Charlottetown, PE C1A 7N8 File #: 4310-20/S25
Special Characteristics
The heritage value of the church is shown in the following character-defining elements:
- the wood frame and wood clapboard cladding, some of which is now covered in vinyl siding
- the steeply pitched gable roof
- the low walls of the nave with faux buttresses
- the three grouped pointed arch windows in the west elevation
- the square windows in the side elevation of the nave
- the two stage tower with corner buttresses, lancet windows, and octagonal steeple rising from a hipped roof
- the gabled dormers with louvred windows above the hipped roof of the tower
- the additions extending from the side elevation
