In response to my earlier blog post on the frame buttresses in Gaspé (St. Luke's Anglican Church pictured above), a man from an Episcopal church in Fremont, California (built 1865) contacted me in 2014 about a problem they were having with their building. They have frame buttresses similar to the ones in Gaspé. Rotting in the base of their the buttresses was thought to have weakened them, causing cracking in the curved timber bracket connecting wall posts with the rafters. They hired an engineer to design a repair. (see Photos below courtesy of St. James Episcopal Church, Fremont, CA)
He shared with me a similar case in a Roslyn, Washington, church built in 1888, reported by these news articles:
"Medieval solution for fragile church," SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER, Sunday, March 16, 2003
"Tiny congregation looks forward to services again at Roslyn church," SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER, Sunday, December 21, 2003
In the case of the Roslyn church, it was built without the buttresses, and the building struggled from the beginning to stand up straight. Cables were inserted across the walls to assist some sixty years ago. Recently an architect designed a permanent fix that relies on adding new frame buttresses "based on time-tested methods used to build parish churches in
England."
So, 19th century Episcopal churches in this period were built with frame buttresses that had a true and vital structural function--to keep the walls standing. Such churches have a vaulted interior space, open to the rafter. Doing that requires having no structural cross tie across the wall plates. And without a cross tie, you must build buttresses.
This design (from what I was told in Canada) was a standard design provided by Anglican Church authorities to the local parishes. These few example show the design appears not only in eastern Canada, but in the west coast of the U. S., implying that perhaps the U. S. Episcopal Church was also practicing the design. However, Catholic builders may have copied the idea without professional plans, but did not bother to build buttresses, not understanding their structural necessity. Over time, even Episcopalians lost the memory of their function, in some cases removing them to be faced with a hazardous condition and expensive repairs.
Here is a Google street view of the Roslyn church with its new buttresses. Immaculate Conception R. C. Church, Roslyn, Washington with its new buttresses.
Another example of a repaired church is the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepard in Berkeley, California pictured here:
The matter of the structural design of these Anglican and Episcopalian churches is worthy of further study. Where did the idea for this design originate? Over what period of time were they built? What other examples can be found? How have they fared over time? What kinds of structural repairs have been made in cases of buttress removal?
