National Historic Site church finds new purpose in helping Hamilton’s most vulnerable
With its 60-metre steeple, St. Paul's Presbyterian Church on James Street South points to the heavens like no other building in Canada.
The National Historic Site, which was designed in Gothic revival splendour in the 1850s by the famed William Thomas, is touted as having the tallest all-stone church spire in the country.
But for the past several months the focus of architectural attention has been a lot closer to the ground.
Workers will soon take down a protective fence from a newly finished, $100,000 portico restoration project on the south side of the building. A camera system is being installed to try to dissuade vandalism that has been a serious problem at the church that accommodates a supervised drug use site in a former Sunday School and is located near a tent encampment beside Whitehern Historic House and Garden.
I hope it doesn't get wrecked," says Alan Stacey, the Principal Conservator from Heritage Mill Historic Building Conservation, the company that did the construction.
Church leaders say they know there is a risk the beautifully renovated portico will be spoiled, but the work needed to be completed or the roofed entranceway to the church would have further decayed into an irreparable state. They were able to manage the cost through fundraising and a City of Hamilton grant.
The portico in the past has been damaged by people who often gathered in the structure, although deterioration from water damage over time was the primary reason for the restoration. One of the doors has a bullet hole from a shot that was fired a couple of years back that thankfully didn't injure anyone. A slug was found inside the church.
There is a second portico, on the north side of St. Paul's, which was restored five years ago. But it now needs repairs to replace spindles that were pulled off by people climbing onto the structure.
Last New Year's Eve, a gas line on the west side of the church was torched using incendiary material," including a wick and rag, according to Hamilton Police. The smoke set off a fire alarm and the Hamilton Fire Department was able to quickly douse the blaze before it caused severe damage. A 49-year-old man described by police as being of no fixed address" was charged. He had been facing other arson-related charges for incidents that took place in York Region.
The biggest repair at St. Paul's took place in the 1980s with a $1.8 million project that painstakingly dismantled and rebuilt the spire. Future work would include repairs to the front steps, touching up masonry at various locations and addressing leaks in the roof.
Rev. Mark Lewis, the interim moderator of the church, was not available for an interview because he was on vacation. But he said in an email that we are not restoring the building just for the sake of restoring the building. We are restoring the building so that as much of it as possible will be used to serve the most vulnerable people in our community. We believe that a healthy future for our congregation calls for us to use our resources, including our building, to serve the community."
The Consumption and Treatment Services" (CTS) drug use site at the church - that is run by Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre - had 21,500 visits in 2022, he says. The goal of the service is to prevent overdose deaths by using trained staff to supervise illicit drug use.
The CTS site, that originally opened on a temporary basis in the summer of 2021, is expected to extend its initial two-year lease. Lewis says plans are in place to go beyond the CTS and also host a Safe Supply Program" that would provide pharmaceutical drugs as an alternative to street-purchased ones - and if possible, we will develop some of our space for attainable housing. We maintain our building so that we can use it to help people in need."
Long-time parishioner, Walter Plater says most members of the congregation have come to accept the CTS at the church. I think there was a lot of uncertainty and fear at the start, but I don't think there is a major concern at this point after two years."
The bigger focus has been dealing with people with mental health issues who obstruct church goers on Sunday mornings. Last summer a security guard was hired to help deal with the situation.
Plater has been a part of the congregation since being baptized at the church 72 years ago. His parents were married there in the 1930s. For 50 years he was the St. Paul's chimer, ringing the church's bells to the tune of various hymns before Sunday services and for special occasions.
The 11 bells, which weigh nearly 5,000 kilograms in total, were installed in the stone tower in 1906 after being delivered from a foundry in New York. The bells are played with the original oak levers that look like wheelbarrow handles. They activate a rope and pulley system that extends upwards into the steeple.
Plater says the church has an older congregation" that has declined from hundreds of parishioners to 40 to 70 people who regularly come out to services in recent years. And like most established churches these days, St. Paul's is facing financial pressures.
There are a lot of churches that have been closing and we are doing our darndest to keep this one going," he says. We are getting along year by year amid dire predictions that one of these days we won't be able to handle the upkeep."
But church leaders hope that by renting out space to organizations involved in community service, creative fundraising and making use of government heritage grants for restoration work, they can keep the church open.
It's a striking contrast to the 1878-built, former James Street Baptist Church across Jackson Street that was partially demolished in 2014. While St. Paul's works to find new purpose as a church, the Baptist church sits as an eyesore in limbo, amid a stalled plan by developers to turn it into a condominium tower.