ELORA – One of Elora’s historic churches is getting some much needed maintenance on its roof, but it will be losing its iconic colour.
Work starts Tuesday to replace the roof of Elora’s Knox Presbyterian Church, first built in 1870 on Church Street. The work is expected to take two weeks and will not impact traffic in the area.
Rev. Susan Clarke said in a phone interview the cost for this work is steep at a price tag of $250,000. With that in mind and fundraising scaled back to more low-key events during the pandemic, Clarke said something had to give.
That something ended up being forgoing the custom colour to replicate the iconic green colour on the roof the church is known for.
“It would cost substantially more to get the roofing in that colour,” Clarke said.
“We’re trying to keep costs down as much as possible because the roof isn’t the only thing we have on the go and I’m not talking about repair work but we don’t want to spend too much of our time doing fundraising and then we’re not able to do community projects.”
The reverend said she understands some in the community are sad to see the green roof go, she’s one of them as she lives next door. She said she was around taking as many photos of the roof as possible.
But she has to be realistic as the roof isn’t the only thing that needs repairing. She said the church steeple needs a lot of work, which has been quoted at in the past at $1 million.
Clarke said they have done some stabilization and refurbishing work to buy some time, which Clarke noted she’s glad they did considering the storm that hit Elora and damaged many trees earlier this summer.
But that will be another time and therefore, for now, the steeple will remain the green colour the church is known for.
She said the church is as much a tourist attraction as it is a religious institution as she regularly sees people stopping to take photos and noted the steeple is one of the first things you see as you come into Elora.
“The running joke at the church is, ‘if we had a nickel for every time somebody took a picture of the church this would have been paid for a long time ago,’” Clarke said, later clarifying she doesn’t think people should have to pay.
To pay for this roof work, the church received a loan from the Presbytery of Waterloo-Wellington which will need to be paid back.
Clarke said there will be future fundraising events to cover this cost.
