Yorkminster Park Baptist Church (Toronto)

The origins of the congregation date from 1829 under the leadership of “good old Dr. Caldicott”, a young Englishman who preached to a small gathering just south-east of King and Yonge Streets.

[permanent dead link‍] Prominent members (and deacons) during this time were Chancellor Boyd of Toronto Baptist College and Albert Henry Newman, professor of history at McMaster University.

He not only kept his congregation together, but during the time he was in charge, the handsome school-room adjoining the church was built, furnished, and in a great measure paid for.

In the 1920s, the decision was made to erect a much larger church at Deer Park, a rapidly growing residential community in what was then the city's northern area.

Unfortunately, a fire in March 1961 destroyed a large part of the Church House and left the sanctuary with minor structural damage.

As the neighbourhood was rapidly changing with the arrival of office buildings, due consideration was given to repairing the damaged structure and selling the property, or uniting with the Yorkminster congregation.

Built in the Tudor Gothic Revival style, the church is made of Owen Sound rubble stone walls, with Indiana limestone used for the piers, arches and traceried windows in the aisles, nave, and transepts.

Its immense size gives Yorkminster Park seating for 1,200 people in the main sanctuary, with room for 500 more in the transept and galleries.

This is made possible, in part, by having a 55-foot nave unobstructed by pillars, a feat accomplished by a technique not available to the medieval architects of the original York Minster – a steel trussed roof.

In 1985 and 1988 renovation programs were begun which included necessary repairs, improvement in tonal quality, the addition of a floating trumpet stop and the capture-action electronic memory for the console.

In 1933, the first “Carols by Candlelight” concert of Christmas music was presented in Toronto at Yorkminster, and the choral service has become a longstanding tradition in the city.

The church has in the last fifty years been creating a collection of stained glass windows in the sanctuary that cover a wide range of biblical and secular themes, both historical and allegorical.