Around 8 a.m. on Sunday morning, smoke began coming from the domed roof of St. Anne’s Anglican Church.

I was driving into town from a day in the country and, like many people in Toronto, I saw the smoke rising in a great pillar into the blue sky. As I drew closer, the news came over my phone: it was St. Anne’s. The church is just around t weed stores near me he corner from me. When I went up to have a look, the roof had already fallen in and bright flames were leaping through, licking at the blackened arches of the dome.

Firefighters on soaring aerial ladders were sending streams of water into the gap, but it made little difference. The fire roared on. Locals and passersby stood in an alley and watched, shaking their heads, taking pictures or simply staring. Within half an hour, it was obvious that the bui order phoenix tears lding was doomed.

An old church is just about a perfect breeding place for fire. Once it got a gri dames gummy co p on St. Anne’s, it was not about to let go. By the time the fire crews had finally doused the flames, only the walls were intact, leaving the glorious interior a blackened, steaming ruin. Everything had been lost, including the famous Group of Seven murals and the glass mosaics that used to sparkle in the sun that streamed into the church during Sunday services. Gone, gone, gone.

What is it about such an event that tears at the heart? It was only a building, after all – an inanimate conf mail order dispensary vancouver ection of brick, wood and plaster. Blessedly, no one was hurt in the blaze, which failed to spread to the surrounding houses and apartments.

And yet, the hurt ran deep. You could see it on the faces of those who came to see the ruins. When I met a neighbour there, we didn’t quite know what to say to each other: “Terrible, terrible,” was all we could manage.

St. Anne’s was an old friend of west-end Toronto. With its yellow brick, imposing dome and twin mail order dispensary vancouver towers, it stood for well over a century – a steady presence through all the changes that washed over the neighbourhood and the city.

When it went up in 1908, built to replace an earlier, smaller church, Toronto was a Protestant-dominated, God-fearing corner of the British Empire. The street it stands on, Gladstone, is named after the renowned Victorian prime minister; the next street over after his arch rival, Benjamin Disraeli, who became the earl of Beaconsfield.

Waves of immigration from places other than the British Isles transformed the growing city. What had been a sleepy town on Toronto’s outskirts became teeming Little Portugal, its grocery stores filled with the smell of salt cod.

The latest wave of change brought young families to occupy and renovate the neighbourhood’s narrow Victorian houses. Dundas Street West, a few steps from St. Anne’s, became one of the city’s trendiest. On the day of the fire, it was full of people visiting Dundas for the food trucks, vintage-clothing booths and live bands of its annual street festival.

Like many churches in today’s world, St. Anne’s struggled. Somehow, it soldiered on, hosting concerts and holding regular tours to show off its splendours.

Those who visited found a quirky gem. Its Byzantine architecture, meant to mirror that of the majestic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, was adventurous for the dour Toronto of its day. The murals up on the ceiling and in the chancel were modern and bright, with echoes to me of William Morris and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Altogether, the space had an airy, luminous feel that distinguished St. Anne’s from many churches of old Toronto, the “City of Churches.”

Though I lived so close, I only went once or twice. Every Christmastime I thought: We really should go up to take in a concert, just to get off the holiday treadmill, get in the spirit and enjoy the aura of that lovely place. I never did. Now I never will.