Ten sites in Erin Village will participate in Doors Open in Erin village on July 10 from10am to 4pm.
Included are woodworker Brian Oates offering tours of Mundell’s (1838) planing mill; and Alan Kirkwood will be at an information kiosk at the Pioneer cemetary on County Road 23 at the north end of town.
All Saints Anglican Church will feature Kersti Finnie on a pipe organ that built in 1947 by Casavant Freres, of Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec – an historic firm that first came to international prominence in 1891 when it installed the organ in the Basilica of Notre-Dame, in Montreal.
All Saints will also feature Anna Marie Holtom and John Wright screening Stars of the Town, one of a collection of 85 black and white films depicting day-to-day life in small town
Southwestern Ontario captured by the late Rev. Leroy (Roy) Massecar (1918-1986) between 1947 to 1949. To supplement his modest church pay, Massecar filmed people from various small towns, including Erin, and returned to screen those films, invited the stars to attend, and charged an admission.
Stars of the Town will be shown at All Saints throughout the day. Admission is free.
At 10:30am Bill Dinwoody will lead a walknig tour, accompanied by Lisa Brusse of Credit Valley Conservation and local historian Steve Revell, from the Main Street, past Mundell Lumber, up Mill Street to Woollen Mill Lane and then through the Conservation area to the site of the Woollen Mill (1840).
An ample exemplar of the species Castor Canadensis has been sighted in the vicinity and dubbed Danny in memory of Erin’s first master builder of dams, Daniel McMillan.
Maps will be available at The Porcupine’s Quill that will enable visitors to take their own walking tours of the downtown.
At 2pm, Revell will lead a more challenging walking tour from the Main Street, past the Charles Street dam and Devonshire House to March Street and then up the switchback to the water tower and across the top of the moraine for an overview of the village and the edge of the escarpment in the distance.
Both guided walking tours (10:30am and 2pm) will assemble at The Porcupine’s Quill, 68 Main Street.
Other sites participating in the event include Renaissance, at 60 Main Street.
Century Church Theatre is trying to arrange to have actors in period costume walk the Main Street of Erin through the day, and attend various events in the three historic churches – All Saints Anglican, Erin United, and Burns Presbyterian.
