Long Time Coming
Nearly 20 years ago, we pulled up to this church expecting a lot of work ahead of us. As sadly happens, the building was deemed too expensive to maintain and the board had decided to tear the church down.
Luckily, we were working with Dave from Total Demolition who had taken on the job with the expectation of reusing as much of the salvage as possible.
The beautiful cut limestone building blocks were carefully pulled down and put into crates for use on a new house construction. All of the stained glass widows were removed intact and now shine again in various homes throughout southern Ontario – 5 of them in one house alone – including this stunning rose window.
One of the tricky things about salvaging a church is that the pieces tend to be overscale, to say the least but this church was built in a more human scale so, though large at eleven feet tall, the windows were manageable.
Even the centre support for the double gothic front entrance doors was moved to Artefacts and serves as a folly in the front garden. The base and the capital are made from cut dolomite limestone while the column is pink granite – heavy, man.
It was bitter/sweet to work on this graceful church. There were doors and pews, alter screens and organ pipes, flooring and vaulting arches and much more but, in the end, the job was done and a once grand edifice was reduced to ruin.
NOW …
why am I digging this all up? Well, it turns out that all the slate from the church roof, carefully removed and put into crates, has never been used so is now available.
There are thousands of them in excellent condition – roughly 12″ x 20″ – ready to serve again. While slate can be an expensive way to roof your house, you’ll pass on long before you would need to roof again. In addition, it looks great and, because these tiles are well over 100 years old, they have that great “lived in” look.
This week, the crates were delivered to Artefacts and seeing them took me back to those old days.
While, I would be happy to sell them all (and eventually will), I know that not everyone needs a whole roof’s worth so they are available as a massive lot as well as individually or in small to large groups for your home and garden projects.
Imagine a wall in your TV room sheathed in slate!
