St. Cuthbert’s stands atop a small hill on the west side of Highway 329, the Lighthouse Route, less than half a kilometer inland from St. Margaret's Bay on Nova Scotia's South Shore. Designed to seat a maximum of 50 persons, this is an indication of the size of the community. The community itself stretches along the highway, mostly to the north of the church, leaving it essentially alone in the country, accompanied only by a community hall next door.
Quite simple in both design and construction, the little church, in the Gothic Revival or Carpenter Gothic style, has a moderately sized bell tower and steeple near one corner which serves as the entrance. I said
near one corner because, in a rare architectural departure, the tower is inset a foot or so from the actual corner of the building, making it somewhat noteworthy. All the openings in the building are Gothic in form, including the large transom over the entrance, filled with colored or stained glass. The square steeple atop the square tower is, again, moderately tall and topped with a very nice cross, possibly powder coated steel or aluminum.
The
numbers we have found for St. Cuthbert’s are somewhat odd, in that it was ostensibly built in 1882 as a chapel-school, later becoming St. Cuthbert’s Anglican Church, being dedicated on December 11, 1917. The church's sign, however, is emblazoned with the number
1907.
Given that Blandford Parish is quite small, as are each of its three churches, they share a pastor, with services revolving among the churches, each one holding services every third week.
The Bells of St. Cuthbert’s
ST. CUTHBERT’S Anglican Church lies at the top of a steep hill overlooking the picturesque fishing village of Northwest Cove, on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. On almost every Christmas Eve since Rev. Laura McCue has been in the parish, it has rained. “It is not postcard perfect,” says McCue, of the family service held inside this tiny church each Christmas Eve, “but it’s magical.”
St. Cuthbert’s is the smallest of the three churches in the coastal parish of Blandford. But it is home to the biggest service of the year, drawing up to 127 people, who overflow the pews meant for half that number.
From the Anglican Journal