Description of Historic Place

Built in 1913 as a Methodist Church the LaHave Islands Marine Museum is a small Gothic building that rests on a knoll with the main entrance overlooking the small channel that separates Jenkin’s Island from Bush Island, near Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. The Municipal Heritage Designation applies to the building and building footprint.

Heritage Value

The LaHave Island Marine Museum is valued for former function as a church; association with marine history of the area; for its continued function as a public building; and for its Gothic Revival architecture.

The building was constructed in 1913 as a Methodist church by local builders Boehner Brothers. In 1925 it became a United Church and served a congregation that resided on the over twenty islands that cumulatively make up the LaHave Islands of in Lunenburg County on Nova Scotia’s Southern Shore.

Through out the building’s history access was exclusively by water. Serving families mainly associated with the fishing industry, congregants travelled to the church in small boats. In 1978, three years after the congregation disbanded, the LaHave Island Marine Museum Society obtained the building and it is now preserved as a museum dedicated to the history of the local inshore fishery and the former United/Methodist congregation.

The building was designed by local architect Thomas Hemeon and has a mixture of Gothic Revival elements common for the period in which the church was built and similar to other churches in the county designed by Hemeon. The church's tower features an open belfry, which is a common Gothic Revival adaptation in Lunenburg County.

The building continues to be of value to the community as one of three public buildings remaining on the LaHave Islands it preserves the built heritage and the marine and religious traditions of the former exclusively marine access community of the LaHave Islands.

Source: Municipality of the District of Lunenburg Heritage Property Book 2 Site 9.

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements of the LaHave Islands Marine Museum relate to its marine and local history and include:

- main entrance facing channel between Jenkin’s Island and Bush Island;
- continued use as a public space.

Character-defining elements of the LaHave Islands Marine Museum that relate to its Gothic Revival architecture include:

- equilateral arched window with tracery over the main entrance;
- lancet arched windows;
- open cage belfry;
- decorative balusters supporting railing around open cage belfry;
- steeply gabled roof;
- wooden clapboarding;
- double hung panel doors.

Interior character-defining elements of the LaHave Islands Marine Museum relate to it original use as a church and include:

- original hardware present on outside and inner doors;
- original windows;
- elements of original ventilation system, including ropes and pulleys;
- interior metal brace jointed by ornately carved wooden coupling anchored in similarly styled wooden couplings with additional bar from the central coupling to the ceiling;
- 1910s newspaper used as carpet underlay.