Wolfville Ridge United Baptist Church

Wolfville Ridge United Baptist Church

Wolfville Ridge United Baptist Church:

Eastern Valley Association

Nova Scotia

Kings County

1350 Ridge Rd, Wolfville, NS

Active

Built circa 1961

The formation in 1969 of the Wolfville Ridge United Baptist Church was the most recent expression of one hundred and forty years of Baptist home missions in the various settlements around what is now Wolfville. As early as 1829 faculty and students of Horton Academy; from 1838 faculty and students of Acadia College (i.e., Acadia University); plus, pastors and members of First Horton Baptist Church (i.e., Wolfville Baptist Church) ministered in the area. The Wolfville Baptist Church wa responsible in the closing years of the nineteenth century for the construction of a mission hall which became known as “the Tabernacle,” where the East Wolfville Mission had a home. In 1947 it was sold to the Town of Wolfville (i.e., currently (2021) the home of the Royal Canadian Legion, C. D. Lumsden Branch 74). By the 1960’s even the Kentville Salvation Army had built a meeting house on the south side of the Ridge Road west of the road to Gaspereau. They closed their mission in 1966. By 1969 the folk at Wolfville Baptist Church with support from the United Baptist Woman’s Missionary Union, and the Home Mission Board of the United Baptist Convention of the Atlantic Provinces arranged to purchase that vacant building and under the leadership of Henry Sharam and members of the Baptist Youth Corps (i.e., students from Acadia University) began a ministry which in time became known as the Wolfville Ridge United Baptist Church. By November 1970, Rev. Clifford Jones was called as a Home Mission Pastor for West Brooklyn and East Wolfville, By the fall of 1989 Wolfville Ridge was responsible for engaging the services of their own pastor. This structure rather plain and atypical for its time in terms of style. It is a single storey structure, with the front entrance on the gable end, set up high off the ground. Above the front entrance is a yellow-colored cross, set between the doors and the vent, near the peak of the roof. This building is a wood frame construction with a medium pitched roof. The building contains few architectural details or embellishments on the exterior, which is typical for its time. This building, although relatively new in terms of age, resembles an early style of church known as

the meeting house style, a common style among Baptists in early to mid-ninetieth century Atlantic Canada. This style is often characterized by its small and rather plain facility, with no steeple, and gothic embellishments. The front entrance was often on the gable end, with either two entrances one on the left and right sides of the front façade; one meant for the men and the other for women, or a centrally placed doorway.

The foundation of the building was installed in the early 1990’s. It is poured concrete and contains an entrance to the basement on the right side of the gable end, plus an inside stairway from the east entry area down along the south wall. This space is used for recreational and social events and contains a kitchen, assembly area, a washroom and a furnace. The main sanctuary space is located on the upper level, accessible by either the steps located directly in front of the east door or by the ramp on the left side of the building leading to the east door. On either side of the building there are three white vinyl rectangular windows that match the size, positioning and style of what was originally there. These windows are not evenly spaced and suggest that one window was perhaps taken and covered over at some point, on either side of the structure. The basement foundation contains four smaller rectangular windows on either side. On the right side of the building, the side near the road, there is a chimney coming from the oil furnace in the basement. Directly behind this, against the corner of the building there is a set of stairs and door that provides a secondary entrance to the small room west of the sanctuary.

The sanctuary is set up on and east to west axis, with the pulpit and platformset near the west end of the church. There is a small space that is accessible by a door on the right side of the pulpit, and accessible from the exterior by the door located on the right side of the church. The church has the original straight back pine pews from when it was first built. The church is rather plain on the interior as well and lacks architectural details and embellishments; it retains many of the original light fixtures from the 1970’s. The pulpit is set up near the southwest corner of the church, in front of the door for the back room.

Information provided by the church and Acadia Archives.