We like to quote here some background information taken from the Bishop's University homepage for you:

"Carefully maintained and beautifully preserved, St. Mark's Chapel was declared Cultural Property by the Quebec Ministère des Affaires Culturelles in 1989. It remains today as an important historical and artistic legacy of the long and significant role of Bishop's University in the Eastern Townships region.

St. Mark's Chapel at Bishop's University was consecrated in 1857 by George Jehoshaphat Mountain, the third Anglican Bishop of Quebec. Funds collected by Jasper Hume Nicolls, the first Principal of the university, made it possible in 1874 to extend the original nave to the south and to add an apse.

St. Mark's is in the Perpendicular Gothic style, prevalent in England during the Tudor period. The facade, with its fenestration, string course and buttresses, shows the influence of the 13th century's formal architectural vocabulary. The ogival windows, twinned on the long side and in group of three on the West facade, repeat the same arrangement which can be seen in Salisbury Cathedral. The entrance door, adorned with an ogival arch, is like that of Eton College in Windsor of Trinity College, Cambridge, England. St. Mark's architecture is close to the type of plan recommended by the Cambridge Camden Society, whose members believed that the Gothic churches built before the reformation should be the inspiration for new religious buildings.

The Chapel was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1891. Corporation decided to rebuild it on the same site, as a memorial to Principal Nicolls, and during the next six years the superb interior furniture and panelling was completed by Sherbrooke cabinet-making firm of George Long. Much of the finer carving is thought to have been the work of his assistant, Georges Bélanger. Made of beautifully crafted Eastern Townships ash, the interior of the chapel is most remarkable for the exquisite quality of the wood sculptures. These include biomorphic finials inspired by the Art Nouveau style, eight kneeling angels represented with different attributes while the North wall of the chapel features the four Evangelists.

The stained glass windows, by the Montreal firm of Spence and Sons, are in the spirit of middle-age craftsmanship, combined with more modern, industrial techniques. Over the door are scenes of the Old Testament, while the apse features the New Testament, the life and death of Christ.

In 1992, the Corporation of Bishop's University authorized the acquisition of a new organ for the Chapel as one of the Sesquicentennial Capital Funding projects. The new, custom-built tracker organ by Karl Wilhelm, of Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, has a case specially designed to complement the interior of the chapel, a configuration that deals with the position of the organ in a chamber to the side of the chapel, and a set of stops appropriate for the Anglican liturgy whilst also suitable for the classic German and French organ literature. Organ concerts are held several times a year and publicized through the local media. The new organ in St. Mark's Chapel is the finest instrument in the Eastern Townships and will be a valuable cultural asset for generations to come.

St. Mark's Chapel is now an ecumenical chapel serving the Bishop's University and Champlain College community."