Gothic glass may rise again after 11th-hour rescue
Saint John artist saves historic church windows for Saint Andrews collector
A former Saint John church, built after the Great Fire of 1877, is quickly turning to rubble, but some of its majestic stained glass windows have been rescued from demolition.
Saint John artist Vicky Walker and her partner, Stephen Chase, say they salvaged 400 square feet of glass in the last few days before an excavator started tearing down the Gothic Arches to make way for a new apartment building.
Working without power, in sub-zero temperatures, on staging they rigged up themselves, Walker and Chase raced against time to chisel panels free from their stone and mortar casings.
They could only work in daylight hours and had to wear masks to protect themselves from all the dust and pigeon poop.
"It was tedious, delicate work that we undertook with reverence and respect," said Chase, whose son was baptized on site when it was still the Centenary Queen Square United Church.
Walker said she'll use some of the glass to make jewelry and ornaments for people who want to remember a piece of Saint John's history that was built in the late 1800s.
She said even the shards feel like gold to her and she sees all kinds of potential.
But most of what they rescued has already gone to a buyer in Saint Andrews, who commissioned Walker and Chase to help him save what they could.
The buyer
John Haddon said his friends think he's crazy for making such an impulsive purchase.
He made the decision about two weeks before the demolition started, not knowing how he was going to extract the glass or what he was going to do with it.
Haddon splits his time between his second home in New Brunswick and Calgary, where he moved more than 30 years ago and where he runs a successful business designing luxury custom homes.
He had arranged to meet with developer Percy Wilbur, inside the Gothic Arches, to discuss his purchase of one main window.
He said that's when Wilbur told him a deal to sell the other windows to a Halifax buyer had just fallen through.
Haddon, a long-time collector of Charlotte County artifacts, had a feeling that if he didn't say yes, nobody else would or could.
"It was just in a nano-second that I said, 'Let's go for it,'" he told CBC News, without disclosing what he paid.
'Sad, sad, sad' breakage
Haddon said the main glass panels he wanted from the start were packaged by Walker and Chase and did arrive intact.
But he said there wasn't time to have Walker and Chase prepare all the panels for transit, and that's why other workers were enlisted to help.
He said it's been "sad, sad, sad" to see that some of those windows broke before they were unpacked.
"I'm afraid there's going to be a lot of damage as I go through it," said Haddon, who has yet to open all the crates that arrived by truck more than a week ago.
"I think I'm going to have to take up stained glass real quick," he joked.
"Or maybe I'm going to have to call in Vicky [to restore them]. She doesn't know that yet."
No plans yet
Haddon said he doesn't know how he'll use the windows, but he does intend to keep them in Charlotte County.
They may be integrated into his own properties or worked into local projects.
He's still learning the history of what he now owns.
"Each window is completely different from the rest," said Haddon, describing the memorial windows that were extracted from the main floor of the sanctuary.
"In fact, I took one piece out of the garage and set it into my kitchen window here."
"The name on it is Jacob V. Troop and so now I want to go on an odyssey to find out who he was," said Haddon.
"A lot of these stained glass windows were dedicated to people and I want their memory to live on."
Other pieces salvaged
Wilbur said he's kept a list of everything that was saved from demolition, including timbers from the roof, the altar woodwork, the pipe organ base, the communion rail, doors and trim, cabinet pulls, Gothic lamps and light fixtures.
Fifty church pews were also spared.
Wilbur said some of the items were given away to neighbours. Other pieces were sold or distributed to collectors.
He also said some of the material, including some of the old church stone, will become part of the new building.