herr2ck: Leaning Steeple of Montreal

August 2025.

Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Montreal is an example of an earlier Gothic Revival church, inspired by the stalwart country churches of Britain rather than the soaring verticality of French Gothic architecture. Its site and context have been heavily altered over the years, but the 1859 church stands today as it did 165 years ago.

Christ Church Cathedral is located at 635 Rue Sainte-Catherine West in downtown Montreal, Quebec. It is bordered by Avenue Union and the Bay Building to the north, Boulevard Robert-Bourassa and the Eaton Centre to the south, Rue Sainte-Catherine and Hotel Birks to the east, and KPMG Tower to the west.

History

Protestants in Montreal can trace their congregations’ history to the 1760s, when the first Protestant churches held services in the chapels of the Catholic church. The first Christ Church, an old Jesuit church, was given to the Anglicans by Montreal’s government in 1789, located near the oldest courthouse on Rue Notre-Dame. (Two of Montreal’s later courthouses stand on that street today, but I’m unsure if they are nearby where the 18th-century courthouse stood.) This first church burned down in 1803.

Elevation of the second church. (Christ Church Cathedral website)

Interior of the second church in 1852. (McCord Stewart Museum)

A second Anglican church building was completed in 1814, appearing to be a Neoclassical or Palladian design, which was located on Rue Notre-Dame east of Place d’Armes. St. George’s, which is southwest of Christ Church Cathedral, opened in 1843 to accommodate extra parishioners. After the Anglican Diocese of Montreal separated from the larger Diocese of Quebec in 1850, Christ Church received its status as a cathedral. However, the second church building completely burned in 1856.

An early photo of Christ Church Cathedral with its original steeple. (Christ Church Cathedral website)

The third cathedral, which is the existing building, was designed by Canadian architect Frank Wills in the Gothic Revival style. Its expression and ornamentation are inspired by the medieval country churches of England, specifically St. Mary’s Snettisham. Wills died in 1856, a year before ground was broken, so Montreal architect Thomas Seaton Scott oversaw the construction work. The church building was completed in 1859 and consecrated in 1867. Early alterations occurred under Andrew Taylor, architect of McGill University’s campus buildings, between 1890 and 1891.

Christ Church Cathedral was built upon soft ground, and the weight of the tower caused it to settle and lean. By 1920, the steeple tilted four feet to the south. The original stone steeple was removed in 1927, and in 1940 it was replaced by a replica made of aluminum, while the tower was under reconstruction between 1939 and 1940. Additionally, the stone facade eroded heavily due to the weather, which was replaced by Indiana limestone in the 1920s, and an artificial stone was used again in the 1980s. More recent additions include an organ installed in 1981, the church’s third, and a choir gallery built the year before.

The church during construction of Promenades Cathedrale. (Christ Church Cathedral website)

A notable alteration to the cathedral’s site was the construction of Promenades Cathedrale, an underground mall that connected the Eaton Centre to the Bay Building while also having access to McGill Station. In 1987, the church was entirely supported by metal stilts while the retail floors underneath it were being built. The project was completed in 1988 and included the Postmodern KPMG Building to the west. The cathedral was designated a historic monument by Quebec’s government in 1988 and a National Historic Site of Canada in 1999.

More recently, the replacement aluminum steeple let in moisture to the steel frame supporting it, causing rusting. It was restored beginning in 2018 and work was still undergoing by 2022, according to Google Maps, but it has been completed as of my visit in August 2025.

Photos

Here is a good view of the church in its entirety:

Note its Latin cross plan with a large tower over the crossing. The aisles are shorter with small buttresses, framing the taller nave in the middle. The transepts are of intermediate height between the two.

The church’s westwerk (which faces east):

This is the most decorated portion of the building. Triple portals lead into the nave, which are balanced by two pointed windows on either side that belong to the aisles. Two octagonal buttresses rise just below the height of the nave, crowned with detailed pinnacles and gargoyles. A small rose window surmounts four skinny lancet windows above the portals.

The sunrise’s lighting did these features a great favor:

One of the large pointed arches by itself:

These are carved so beautifully, but the colonnettes are severely damaged by weathering.

Grotesques and gargoyles:

I like the composition of this one--detail of the rose window and buttresses with KPMG Tower rising behind:

I think those are functioning gargoyles, too. An even closer view:

A better look at the tower:

The octagonal chapter house, where the clergy originally met and the dean’s office today:

Tower and north entry, with its smaller rose window:

All things considered, this is a pretty simple Gothic Revival church. The only major details here are the window tracery, otherwise the walls are only simple masonry and unelaborated buttresses.

This memorial, incorrectly believed to be part of the original steeple, was built in honor of bishop Francis Fulford, the first of the Diocese of Montreal: