Originally a farming community known as Gopher Creek, Virden is a town with a population of 4000 on the Trans Canada Highway. Its first church was Anglican, built in 1885 on land assigned by the Canada Northwest Land Company. The company was incorporated in 1882, the same year the Anglican church was founded in Virden with Rev. F. F. Davis, its first appointed minister, conducting services in his home. The parish of St. Mary the Virgin, in the Diocese of Brandon, was created on April 20, 1886.
That first wood frame church was in use until 1891 when it was sold and removed. The present fieldstone church replaced it in 1892. Its cornerstone was laid by Mrs. Nina Gertrude Watts, wife of Rev. Henry Watts, the rector. A tin box with newspapers, building plans and other items was placed in the foundation as a time capsule. This was opened at the 100th anniversary celebrations in 1992. The church was consecrated by the Most Reverend Samuel Prichard Matheson, Archbishop of Rupertsland, in 1905.
St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church was designed by Winnipeg architect Walter Chesterton whose plan, it is said, is based on that of St. Mildred, a stone church in the Isle of Wight. The result is a basilica-like building with a large stone tower, several stained glass windows (two by Leo Mol), and extensive woodwork.
In 1910 a corner plot at Ninth Avenue and La Crosse Street was purchased for a rectory, for which George Harris obtained a contract in 1915. He had earlier received the contract for the Parish Hall on Queen Street. Renovations made around that time included interior work, enlargement of the vestry, and upgrading of the heating and lighting. Changes in the 1950s included addition of a cloister and a fieldstone fence, and extension of the roof to protect the sidewalk.
A medallion window presented to the 12th Manitoba Dragoons by the City of Bruges, Belgium, in recognition of the regiment’s liberation of the city on September 12, 1944 was installed and unveiled in 1952.
• Lila Bell Wallace (nee Acheson), daughter of a Presbyterian minister and co-founder of Reader’s Digest, was born in Virden on December 25, 1889. She died of heart failure at the age of 94 in Mount Kisco, New York.
• Photographed in 2008.
• Published in Senior Scope, September 10, 2019.