Andrew G wrote to tell me he enjoyed the week-end workshop at Kingsmere and that he will wear his Dry Stone Walling Across Canada tee shirt with pride!
He sent along images of part of the retaining wall he built in his backyard.
The stones were from the Holy Trinty Church on Sherbrooke street in Montreal. The story of this church is a sad one:
The Greek Orthodox community bought the church in 1925 and it was gutted by a fire in January 1986. After the fire the Greek community raised money to rebuild it but the funds were diverted to other projects. It was demolished in 1997.''
The building and all the dimensional stones including dressed voussoirs, lintels and quoins were being trucked away to be crushed into gravel. Andrew came across the church being demolished one day as he was driving to work and had to some fast negotiating to be able to rescue over 60 tons of the material. He was able to use it in his sunken garden, after storing it for a couple years on his front lawn.
''Holy Trinity was constructed in 1865 and for the first 60 years of its existence it was known as the Sherbrooke Street Methodist Church.
The Greek Orthodox community bought the church in 1925 and it was gutted by a fire in January 1986. After the fire the Greek community raised money to rebuild it but the funds were diverted to other projects. It was demolished in 1997.''The building and all the dimensional stones including dressed voussoirs, lintels and quoins were being trucked away to be crushed into gravel. Andrew came across the church being demolished one day as he was driving to work and had to some fast negotiating to be able to rescue over 60 tons of the material. He was able to use it in his sunken garden, after storing it for a couple years on his front lawn.
Andrew ended by writing "I guess a small consolation is that some of it was not turned into gravel."
