The former monastery near Cornwall has been demolished, ending a decades-long conservation battle

A century-old former monastery that was once protected by a heritage designation was demolished last week in South Stormont Township, despite a concerted effort by some in the community to save it.

The convent and former Roman Catholic parish school in Saint Andrews West, Ontario, about 90 kilometers southeast of Ottawa, have been saved since the late 1970s and again two years ago.

But despite the efforts of a pair of local activists, a local heritage designation and an appearance on a popular Instagram account dedicated to saving historic structures, a demolition company tore down the building earlier this month.

Jordan Munn, a local chef who recently returned to the area after years abroad, and Kae Elgie, former president of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, began leading an effort to save the structure when South Stormont’s attempt to find a demolition contractor first came to light in 2021.

“This is bad news for future generations,” said Munn, whose petition to save the former monastery has garnered nearly 1,400 signatures.

Last week, Munn was among several people standing behind a security fence photographing the structure’s rapid demolition.

“What’s the point of having historic preservation of buildings if it can be taken out?” he asked as the diggers tore down the towering brick walls of the monastery.

The heritage status was repealed

Munn and Elgie took their fight to South Stormont’s bid to repeal bylaw 3418, which conferred heritage status on the building, to the Ontario Land Tribunal.

Although the tribunal sided with the two, the decision was not binding and within months South Stormont council voted again to revoke the building’s heritage designation.

“It was just show,” said a dejected Munn, who envisioned a retirement home or redeveloped apartments for the property.

The three-story brick building, built in 1908 after the original 1840s Gray Nuns convent was lost to fire, had been vacant since 2017.

It faced the wrecking ball in 1978 after the nuns moved out, but the town rallied around the building. It was renamed the Raisin River Heritage Center and served in various ways over the years as a book depository, branch library and headquarters for the Cornwall Township Historical Society.

The fix was set at $2 million

With the cost of remediating the lead, asbestos and bat infestation and making the building suitable for public use estimated at nearly $2 million – and no takers, even when the township offered the building for free – South Stormont’s chief administrative officer, Debi Lucas, said the town decided “it was time to go down”.

But the decision to remove the building’s heritage designation doesn’t mean the township has given up on heritage preservation, Lucas said.

“This was a very unique situation in a unique location,” she explained.

Lucas said the cost to demolish the building, build a memorial, prepare the site and turn it back over to the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario (CDSBEO) will likely reach $450,000.

A complicating factor in the search for a new occupier was the fact that a CDSBEO primary school had been built near the monastery, which then had a perimeter of only two meters preserved around it. Even the structure’s septic system was outside of its own footprint.

The school board wanted the final say on who or what could cross its property and when to access the former convent.

“CDSBEO greatly values ​​the Catholic heritage in our communities,” the board said in an emailed statement to the CBC.

Munn said the school board’s inflexibility helped scuttle his efforts to save the building.

Planned commemorative monument

Conserving the thousands of old buildings built for ecclesiastical purposes, often on a monumental scale, is a difficult and special challenge, said Andrew Waldron, head of the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals.

But doing so is often the greenest option, he said. “The greenest building is the building that already exists.”

Waldron said he believes federal tax incentives like those in the U.S. will offset the additional costs of keeping the building instead of tearing it down.

He said, as with lighthouses and grain elevators, communities and other stakeholders must accept that conservation may include some changes.

“We’re moving away from the idea that heritage is just a museum piece or that it’s untouchable,” Waldron said.

A wooden altar from the cloister was removed before the demolition, and other artefacts were dispersed to area museums, but the rapid demolition meant that little of the woodwork, ornamentation or windows were saved.

The municipality salvaged 2,500 bricks from the demolished site and will pay for the construction of a commemorative monument incorporating a cross and two figures from the monastery.

At a nearby historic interpretive park commemorating villages lost in the 1950s St. Lawrence Seaway floods, Long Sault, Ont., resident David Dalgleish accused authorities of taking the “easy way out” instead to invest in the cultural heritage of the community.

“Religion has played an important role in this region of Canada,” he said, noting the role of the original St. Andrew’s parish during the War of 1812, when it was commissioned as a hospital.

“It drives me so crazy. We’ve lost so much of our identity in this area,” agreed Munn.