The United Church of Canada is nearing its centenary. It was in 1925 that three denominations — the Methodists, Congregational Union of Canada and a majority of Canadian Presbyterian churches — amalgamated to form the United Church.
But Bradford United Church, located at 66 Barrie St., predates that union by nearly 75 years.
Methodist ministers were among the first to serve the religious needs of settlers in West Gwillimbury Township. The land on which Bradford United Church stands was purchased by church trustees in 1836. In 1851, a new Wesleyan Methodist Church was built on the site.
In 1864 – three years before Confederation, when Ontario was still known as Upper Canada – the existing church sanctuary was constructed. The original church became the Irene Turner Hall, home to community gatherings, teas and church dinners.
Built in the Gothic Revival style, the church’s tall, narrow windows featured clear glass below and stained glass in the trefoils – the three-part pierced arches, that symbolize the Trinity. Centred over the front door was another octagonal window, with bars in the shape of a cross.
The beams, the pews, the original glass are all still in place, even though a Narthex or entry porch was added in 1988, and over the years members of the congregation have donated everything from new doors and communion sets to stained glass windows
Church elder Robert Evans recently provided a tour of the interior of Bradford United Church, and a closer look at the windows.
Evans has a direct connection to the oldest of the stained glass windows, installed in 1958 on the north side of the church “In loving memory of Thomas W.W. Evans (d. 1955) and wife Edith Graham Evans. (d. 1945),” and given by their children.
He talked about his grandparents – Thomas growing up on a West Gwillimbury farm, Edith living in Bradford “all her life.” When they married, they bought a home on Holland Street, west of Drury – torn down years ago to make way for the Red and White grocery store.
“It was a lovely old home,” Evans remembers, with several acres of garden. “It was sad to see it go.”
In the window, Jesus stands with apostles Peter and Andrew, fishermen who are casting their nets in the Sea of Galilee. The inscription: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
A second stained glass window was installed in the 1960s on the south side of the church, in memory of Rev. F. G. MacTavish, a United Church minister for over 42 years, nearly 20 of those years spent in Bradford (1944-1963).
The theme: ‘Suffer the little children…”
Evans was just a child when Rev. MacTavish came to Bradford and he remembers both the minister and the minister's wife, Mary.
“He was very friendly, a Scottish guy,” he says. “She was more a strait-laced person, he was more jovial.”
The remaining two windows in the sanctuary commemorate members of the Crossland family. On the north side, a painted stained glass window depicting, “Behold a Sower went forth to Sow,” was donated in 1989 by Waldie and Doris Crossland, “In loving memory of John Laughlin Henderson and his wife Lottie Luella Bradley.”
Across the aisle on the south is the most recent window, ‘Jesus appeared to Mary in the garden,’ given in memory of Doris M. Crossland by her family, in 1997.
There is one more window, installed in the Narthex. The large window depicts the Psalm, 'The Lord is my Shepherd,' done in a traditional style to match the stained glass elsewhere in the church. On a sunny day, it fills the entry with brilliant colour.
Evans points out plaques throughout the church, commemorating donations made by grateful church members. The lights in the original entry were donated by the United Church Women (UCW) in memory of his mother, Marion Eva (Sunny) Evans, a dedicated UCW member.
The church has so far preserved its history – the carved pews, the stencilled plaster decorations on the walls, the polished beams – even as the community has added to it over the years, contributing everything from hand-crafted wooden furnishings and original paintings to the stained glass windows.
There is even a baby grand piano, donated when the Bradford Arts Centre was established at the church, to take advantage of the magnificent acoustics created by the combination of plaster walls and wood.
Over the decades, Bradford United Church has been enriched by the talents of life-long residents as well as newcomers, including the “many European families came to Bradford after the war,” Evans says. “We have a rich culture.”
Despite the challenges of the pandemic, which closed doors and dried up funding, that culture continues and is on view in one of Bradford’s most historic churches – at least for now.
Bradford United, like so many other churches in southern Ontario, is facing growing financial needs, a shrinking congregation, and an uncertain future.
