Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Baltimore's Hidden Gem Churches

On October 26 at noon, I will be giving a virtual tour of some of Baltimore's lesser-known churches. It is one of a series of presentations in conjunction with the Baltimore Architecture's Arch-tober Doors Open Baltimore events. You can find more information here

I will be featuring some of my long-time favorite churches,

as well as churches that I've recently discovered.
I hope that you will join me for this virtual event!

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Cokesbury Church, Abingdon

Although the Cokesbury Methodist Church isn't itself as old as many of the churches I've written about here, it has a very long and interesting history. The church is on the site of the Cokesbury College, which was founded in 1784, and classes began a few years later.  
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the school:
Cokesbury College was founded as the first Methodist college in the United States. Its name was a combination of the names of Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, who were ordained the first two Methodist bishops in America at the meeting held on Christmas Day, 1784 at which it was also decided to found the college. 
In December 1788, there was an attempt to burn down the college. However the fire was put out by some of the students before it caused significant damage. In 1794, the college was granted a charter by the state of Maryland. The church that served as the chapel to the college did however survive. Cokesbury United Methodist Church (as it is now known by) was first called the Abingdon Methodist Chapel. It was built on land purchased in 1782 from John Paca, the brother of the Governor of Maryland. By 1784 it was opened for worship.
The church was built in the late 1800's after an earlier wood-frame church burned.
The college as an organization ceased to exist after a fire destroyed the building in 1795. 

While none of the college building remains, there is a beautiful bronze model of the building on a plinth in the center of the property. 

The building was said to have been in "dimensions and style of architecture fully equal, if not superior, to anything of the kind in the country." It was brick, 108 feet in length and 40 feet in width, three stories high, and stood on the center of the six acre tract, with almost equal slope on each side.
On the first floor was a large hall, 40 feet square, from each corner of which a winding stairway led to the story above. On each side of the hall were two classrooms, each 20 x 25 feet.
Link to Medusa.

Monday, May 18, 2020

Hannah More Academy Chapel, Baltimore County

The light the other evening was just beautiful. It's that "golden hour" added to some wonderful clouds. So I thought it would be perfect to take some photographs, and remembering how similar the chapel at Hannah More Academy was to Christ Church in Owensville, Anne Arundel County. 
The chapel, which is also known as St. Michael's Church, is located on the grounds of the former Hannah More Academy in Reisterstown. Hannah More was the first Episcopal boarding school for girls in the United States. However, the church was separate from the school for many years. 
When a new church was built in the nearby Reisterstown, the attendance at St. Michael's declined, and the church was de-consecrated in 1908. But in 1928, a petition to re-open the church for use by the students was forwarded to the diocese and the church was renovated and re-opened.
By the 1960's, enrollment was starting to wane and in the 1970's, the students and the school's charter were transferred to St. Timothy's, another girls' boarding school. The chapel was de-consecrated in 1978.
It remains an excellent example of mid-19th century Gothic Revival architecture. As with Christ Church, the design is characteristic of English architect, Richard Upjohn. It is easy to see the similarities.
Link to Medusa.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Trinity Church, St. Mary's City

I knew the visit to the Trinity Church in St. Mary's City would be one of the harder ones. I went to school at St. Mary's sometime last century and left after the suicide of one of my closest friends.
I had returned a few times after the Governor's Cup, a yacht race which started on Friday evening off of Annapolis, and finished sometime on Saturday at Church Point at St. Mary's.

Trinity Church didn't play a huge role in my life at SMC, but I was aware of it, and certainly knew Church Point,
which we always used as a starting and finish line for regattas, and the Garden of Remembrance adjacent to the Church's graveyard, where you could get a birds' eye view of the racing.

The first church on this site dates to the 1676, when St. Mary's was the capital of the state of Maryland. When it moved to Annapolis in 1694, the former state house building was used for the church.  
In 1829, construction on the present Trinity Church was begun, and the old State House, now beyond repair, was dismantled and the bricks used to build the present church. The old State House had been a church for 134 years, as compared to the 18 years it served the Province. 
St. Mary's College of Maryland is a public, liberal arts college in St. Mary's City, Maryland.

Established in 1840, St. Mary's College of Maryland is an honors college that claims to "offer an experience similar to that of an elite liberal arts college."

Sadly, because of the pandemic, I couldn't get inside the church. I actually didn't stay there too long as the ghosts from my past were too prevalent and along with the disruptions and the loss of our way of life as we knew it, it was all just too sad to bear.


Link to Medusa.

P.S. I had forgotten about this poem, written by Lucille Clifton, the Poet Laureate of St. Mary's. It was written to send off the sailing team, of which I used to be captain, and I think it's so appropriate now. 

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

St. Joseph, Cordova

I made a quick run over to the Shore the other weekend to check out St. Joseph's Church in Cordova, just off the Route 50 and 404 intersection. 
When I started this project, I made an assumption that most of the churches I visited would be Catholic because of Maryland's early tradition of religious freedom. But that has not been the case at all. More than 90% of the churches have been Episcopal churches, and generally, they are better-looking than the Catholic ones!
From the HABS report:
According to the corner stone, the original church was constructed in 1782 and rebuilt in 1903. The original church can be traced from the color and bond of the brick. Portions extend into what appears to be a two story, three bay brick house of early 19th century date. The other end stops at the transept which was added in 1903. 
Its original appearance would be conjectural, although, the central windows of the present nave apparently were earlier doors. In its present form, the church is an extension of a two story brick parsonage. 
The church is three bays long plus three semicircular additions creating a transept and upper arm of a cross. It is only one story in height and has a steeply pitched 'A' roof, conical on the three semicircular sections. Each of the latter sections has a single window with leaded stained glass sash. There is a chimney on the north side, otherwise the only other chimneys are in the parsonage. Three windows light the sides of the nave. The latter have semicircular arches. 
Portions of the older part are laid in Flemish bond above a chamfered water table, otherwise it is common bond. The main entrance to the church is located on the southeast side of the building. The parsonage is a three bay long two story brick building with central doors. Sash is 6/6 and there is a basement under the south end. A chimney is located in each gable. 
I was disappointed that I couldn't see the interior of this church, so I snagged one from the Google.

Link to Medusa.

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

St. Andrews, California (MD)

A few weeks ago, I drove down to St. Mary's County, but this time to the east side, along the Chesapeake Bay. I am very familiar with the drive down Solomon's Island Road, having done it for two years while in college. 
Just after you cross the bridge, you arrive in California, which is just up the road from Hollywood. And that's where I found the fascinating St. Andrew's Church. 
It was built in 1766 to serve as the parish church of St. Andrew's Parish, which had been established in 1744.
Because the church is set back off the road, at a perpendicular angle, it's hard to get the a handle on how unusual the architecture is. 
It is a rectangular brick box church laid in Flemish bond with a gable roof and round-arched windows trimmed with brick segmental arches. Richard Boulton designed the church in 1766; he was also responsible for the outstanding carving and ornamentation at Sotterley, a plantation on the Patuxent River. 
From the HABS report: On the west front, all convention is abandoned in a flourish of architectural forms. At both the northwest and southwest corners stands a two-story square brick tower with a diminutive spire.
Brick quoins trim the corners of the towers up to the string course. Each tower has two niches on the west side that are framed with a raised brick arch, awaiting some appropriate statue or urn. On the south and north side of each tower is a round-arched window situated above a shallow recess framed with a brick arch. Between the towers at ground level is a recessed one-story loggia. Above the loggia is a two-tiered gallery lighted by a Palladian window centered under the pedimented gable end.
A separate exterior door and staircase lead to the upper tier of the gallery, and an interior step ladder leads to the lower gallery. On the interior, the church has a barrel-vault ceiling over the nave which is supported by columns with Ionic capitals.
Each of the two side aisles has a flat ceiling. The original flagstones pave the floor. The carved wooden reredos has fluted Ionic pilasters which frame Biblical quotations painted by John Friech in 1771. The church has box pews.

Overall, the churches in St. Mary's County have been a disappointment, but there are some treasures like St. Andrew's that have made the trip worthwhile. 

Link to Medusa

OOPS!

Apparently, there is a glitch in the Google-sphere, which included Blogger, and a lot of photographs from late March and early April have gone missing.
They assure me that the images will be returned, as they are aware of this issue. Let's hope so!