Provincial Heritage Site

Little Britain United Church

St. Andrews, Manitoba

Also known as Little Britain Presbyterian Church, The Old Stone Church, Église presbytérienne Little Britain

Primary elevations, from the east, of Little Britain United Church, Lockport area, 2006

Primary elevations, from the east, of Little Britain United Church, Lockport area, 2006

Photo: Historic Resources Branch, Manitoba Culture, Heritage & Tourism, 2006

Built
1872–1874
Recognized
1989
By
Province of Manitoba

The register’s text, word for word

Description

Little Britain United Church, constructed in 1872-74, is a robust one-storey vernacular stone structure on sprawling grounds that overlook the Red River near Lockport and also hold the church's cemetery. The provincial designation applies to the church, its cemetery and its lot.

Heritage value

Little Britain United Church is the oldest United church of Presbyterian origin in the Canadian West and one of only five stone churches remaining in Manitoba from the Red River Settlement era. The structure's deep pioneer roots are expressed through its vernacular design, based on the medieval Gothic architectural traditions of English and Scottish parish churches; its excellent stonework executed by noted masons Duncan McRae and John Clouston; and its unostentatious interior, reflective of frontier austerity as well as Presbyterian precepts. The well-preserved church recalls the formative period of institutional Presbyterianism in the West. It occupies land granted to the congregation by the Hudson's Bay Company and used for worship since the early 1850s when Reverend John Black, the Red River Settlement's first Presbyterian minister, began organizing local congregations, early church missions and schools. Still in active use, Little Britain United is one of a number of important nineteenth-century buildings concentrated at the northern end of the historic Red River corridor.

Source:

Manitoba Heritage Council Minutes, October 17, 1987

Character‑defining elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Little Britain United Church site include:

  • the church's inclusion in a larger surviving collection of Lockport-area structures

dating from the Red River Settlement, including nearby Lower Fort Garry

  • the church's east/west

orientation, facing the Red River, on a well-treed and grassed lot that also holds a cemetery with many prominent pioneer graves, including that of Duncan McRae, etc.

Key elements that define the church's vernacular and modest Gothic Revival styling include:

  • the basic symmetrical massing composed of the

rectangular expanse of the nave denoted by a steeply pitched gable roof with cedar shingles

  • the robust

facades of roughly dressed limestone, hollow and filled with rubble

  • the square, World War I memorial

tower (1920) featuring a projecting entrance sheltered by a gable overhang, a bull's eye window, a wooden belfry with louvred pointed openings on all sides, and a pyramidal roof clad in fish-scale wooden shingles, all topped by a pinnacle

  • the openings, including the pointed arched windows in the nave,

composed of four stained-glass windows in the south elevation and four plain windows in the north, all with basic wooden tracery and stone voussoirs

Key elements that define the church's straightforward interior layout, finishes and details include:

  • the formal hall plan composed of the nave with a centre

aisle and a raised sanctuary

  • the pseudo-gambrel ceiling with dark-stained or dark-painted wood planking

- the light-painted plaster walls with dark wainscotting

  • the simple hand-crafted wooden pews
  • the details,

finishes and intact furnishings, including the moulding, wooden pulpit and altar rail, a chair that belonged to John Black, the straight edge used by the masons during the church's construction, etc.

End of the register’s text

Location

5879 PTH No. 9, St. Andrews, Manitoba, R0C, Canada

50.10273° N, 96.93968° W

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Nearby

All 9 places in St. Andrews

Similar places

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From the Canadian Register of Historic Places, as last updated on December 12, 2025. The register’s text is shown word for word.