RECOGNITION COMING
Isolated church with ghostly reputation could become newest CBRM heritage property
People believe rural church is haunted.
A secluded 19th century church that some people believe is haunted could soon be recognized by the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.
The CBRM heritage advisory committee voted Monday to recommend Christ Church in South Head be registered as a municipal heritage property.
Citizen appointee and committee chair Vanessa ChildsRolls said the 172-year-old wooden building predates Confederation and would be the third-oldest church in the area.
“I can only think of two other churches in CBRM that are that old — St. Georges in 1785, which is a heritage property that we oversee, and St. Patrick’s Church, which is 1828, which is also within the heritage district — so it’s got a very significant role as a heritage property in that case,” said Childs-Rolls, who visited the site last week.
In addition to its age, she said the church’s isolated location (“it’s off a dirt road that’s off of another dirt road, that’s off of another dirt road,” she told the committee) makes it stand out. Located about 20 kilometres southeast of Glace Bay, South Head juts out onto the Atlantic Ocean on the same headland that’s also home to Waddens Cove and South Port Morien.
“It was awe-inspiring to me to be in the middle of the woods, in the middle of what is essentially an island off the coast,” she said. “It was an interesting feeling to think of how people got to church and how they spent their time there and how this rural community came together, and the fact that they still have at least three church services there, I think the value of the property is the fact that it is so rural, and we do not have a lot of those rural properties registered. And it’s pre-Confederation.”
Aside from some structural issues — she noted a deteriorating foundation, bulging wall and leaky roof — the biggest concern for the church is vandalism. Its remote location and paranormal reputation have made the church the target of both thieves and thrill-seekers over the years.
Nearby resident Gail Boutlier, one of a small group of people who were maintaining the property, told the Post in 2005 that a 200-year-old Bible was stolen from the church. She said she’d even seen evidence of séances being staged there.
“They brought the organ stool, Bishop’s chair, pulpit — everything — down by the altar,” Boutlier, one of a group of about 25 people who were maintaining the property, said at the time. “It was obvious what they were doing.”
The church, which is owned by the Anglican Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, closed in the 1970s, but an anniversary service, cemetery service and song service are still held there each year.
If CBRM council votes to designate Christ Church a municipal heritage property, it would receive a plaque and the owner could qualify for modest financial incentives under a CBRM grant program. The budget for the program is $60,000 for this year.
According to CBRM senior planner and heritage officer Rick McCready, last year when there was a $55,000 budget for the program, grants ranged from $530 for the Dominion Heritage Committee, to $7,117 for the Glace Bay Heritage Museum.