About The Church of St. Bartholomew

St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church is located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The parish was founded in 1866 and the building completed in 1868. Its architect is uncertain but believed to have been Thomas Seaton Scott who designed a number of other prominent Ottawa structures. The church is located at 125 MacKay Street in the New Edinburgh neighbourhood across the street from Rideau Hall, the official residence of the Governor General of Canada. A vice-regal pew is reserved for the Governor General at the front of the church.

St. Bartholomew’s is also the regimental chapel of the Governor General's Foot Guards, and as such has become known as the “Guard’s Chapel.”

On Saturday, August 24, 1867– the feast day of St. Bartholomew – the heads of some 30 Anglican families came together in the town of New Edinburgh, then on the outskirts of Ottawa, to found a new Anglican parish. At noon, just six weeks prior to this date, on July 1st, a "dazzling sunny day", the Dominion of Canada was proclaimed.Since then, St Barts and Canada have grown up together and their histories have been inter-twined.