From the Royal British Columbia Museum, it was just a 300-m. (5-min.) walk to the historic, beautifully restored Church of Our Lord National Historic Site. We arrived before 2 PM (the church’s closing time) but the church was already locked. The oldest church in Victoria, it is part of the Reformed Episcopal Church and is on the City of Victoria Heritage Building Registry.

Here’s the historical timeline of the church:

• On October 29, 1874, the congregation of the Church of Our Lord was created by the Rev. (later Bishop) Edward Cridge and his followers (which included many of Victoria’s pioneer families) following a notable Anglican schism, marking the establishment of the Reformed Episcopal Church in Canada. Reverend Cridge challenged the authority of George Hills, the Anglican Bishop of British Columbia, in an ecclesiastical court. The court decided against Rev. Cridge and Bishop Hills prohibited Rev. Cridge from celebrating Divine Service at Christ Church Cathedral.
• In 1875, the construction of the church began.
• In January 16, 1876, the church was opened and the first service was held here.
• In 1929, the adjacent Cridge Memorial Hall was built.
• In 1979, it was recognized on the Canadian Register of Historic Places
• In June 1990, the church, Cridge Memorial Hall and the church grounds were recognized as a National Historic Site of Canada for being the finest wooden expression of Gothic Revival (Carpenter’s Gothic) architecture on the country’s West Coast.
• In 2004, it was listed on the Canadian Register of Historic Places.
• In 2009, it became a member of the Anglican Church in North America, upon its creation. That same year, it was listed as a National Historic Site of Canada
• In 2012, it merged with a local congregation of the Anglican Network in Canada and moved to the jurisdiction of that diocese (now renamed the Anglican Diocese of Canada).
• In April 2025, on its 150^th year anniversary, the church completed a major $230,000 restoration of its signature 25-ft. high replica steeple and historic cast-iron bell, re-raising the spire back onto the belfry.

Check out “Christ Church Cathedral”

Local architect John Teague designed the 104-ft. high, 56-ft. wide and 38-ft. high church in the Carpenter Gothic style (used for churches across North America, it is an excellent example of the adaptation of the classic Gothic architectural style to suit local building materials), featuring simplistic vertical lines, spatial configurations, pointed-arch windows, leaded and stained-glass windows, decorative elements, authentic woodwork and paneling, steep gable roof, vertical buttress piers, bell tower, rose window, California redwood board-and-batten siding and an interior hammer beam truss system.

Located on property donated by James Douglas, this freestanding building is one of the few remaining wooden structures of this style and era intact in British Columbia.  The Cridge Memorial Hall, designed by notable architects Samuel Maclure and Hubert Savage, replaced an original Sunday School annex.

Church of Our Lord National Historic Site: 626 Blanshard St. cor. Humboldt St., Victoria, British Columbia V8W 3G6. Tel: 250-383-8915. Website: www.ourlord.ca. Coordinates: 48.420°N 123.364°W.