A key piece of the London-area’s Black history will make the over 12 kilometre journey next week from its current location to its new permanent home at Fanshawe Pioneer Village.
The Fugitive Slave Chapel, which currently sits at 432 Grey Street will be loaded onto a flatbed truck Tuesday morning. It will then slowly travel along main routes in the city to get to the village at 1424 Clarke Road.
“There has been a great deal of planning that has gone into making this happen,” said Dawn Miskelly, the village’s executive director.
In addition to public consultations to ensure the community was on board with the relocation and securing heritage and moving permits, the village had to raise $300,000 to cover the cost. The online fundraiser was launched to coincide with Black History month in February. Since then more than $400,000 has been donated.
The money will not only be used for the move, but also to fully refurbish and repurpose the building to teach about slavery, the Underground Railroad, and the area’s Black histories.
“[The building] has sat without any restoration work happening on it for a number of years, so we wanted to make sure the process was fully funded to allow us to get started on that work as soon as it arrives,” said Miskelly. “The building itself is one of the only known pieces of Black heritage in the city. We are very excited to bring that here to the village to help us share more voices and the story that the village interprets. By having that built structure here it will add more presence to the story.”
The chapel was built in 1848. The work to preserve is being done with support from the London Black History Coordinating Committee, the Chapel Committee, Congress of Black Women of Canada, Black Lives Matter London, the British Methodist Episcopal Church and the London & Middlesex Heritage Museum which operates Fanshawe Pioneer Village.
Foundation laid in Fanshawe Pioneer Village ahead of the arrival of the Fugitive Slave Chapel. Photo courtesy of Dawn Miskelly.
The new foundation for the chapel was poured at the end of summer with plans to place the building on top of it one week after the relocation. Then once a contractor is selected restoration work will begin. Village officials are currently accepting tenders for the work with the hope a firm will be selected before Christmas.
The move itself is expected to generate a lot of attention. The chapel is expected to leave Grey Street at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, turn right from Adelaide Street onto Hamilton Road, then travel east to Highbury Avenue where it will make a left turn. It will then proceed to Fanshawe Park Road where it will continue east into the Fanshawe Conservation Area, using the back-gate entrance to the village.
It is unclear how long it will take to get the chapel from point A to point B, noted Miskelly.
“It will all depend on what the movers encounter as they travel through the city. They will have a police escort with them and utility trucks to move any overhead wires that need to be moved… They can’t go at a super high speed,” she said, adding that spectators are asked not to gather on Grey Street. “It is a small street and Continental Building Movers Ltd. needs the space to maneuver the equipment. We are encouraging people wanting to watch the move to do so at a safe location from a sidewalk along the route. That can be along Hamilton Road, along Highbury Avenue or the corner of Fanshawe and Highbury.”
A celebration will be held at the village once the restoration work has been completed, likely in the late spring or early summer.
