St. James United Church is located at the intersection of Highway 2 and the Lornevale Road in the picturesque Great Village, NS. The original building was erected in 1845; However, this church burned in 1882. It 1883, it was subsequently rebuilt and is now one of four provincially-registered historic buildings in the area. In 1900, St. James was named after Reverend James MacLean, the minister of the congregation from 1876 until his 1900 retirement.

St. James was designed by Nova Scotian architect, James C. DuMaresq, with Rhodes and Curry as contractors. The structure of St. James features a number of defining characteristics, reflective of the Gothic Revival style common to the era: wood frame construction, clapboard siding, cut stone foundation, steeply pitched roof, corner and side buttresses, and narrow, pointed windows. The high ceiling pays homage to the community’s ship-building heritage in its unique shape – reflective of an inverted keel of a ship.

 

The building is now home to In the Village Café, which was developed in efforts to preserve the historic building and maintain community use of St. James.