A school for training teachers of the Presbyterian faith was founded downtown in 1914 as the General Assembly School for Training. It soon outgrew its quarters and relocated near Union Theological Seminary. In 1921 the institution purchased its current grounds from the Joseph Bryan heirs, owners of nearby Laburnum. A campus of seven muscular, beautifully detailed Georgian Revival buildings was planned as an open-ended quadrangle, loosely based on the Lawn at the University of Virginia. The first two buildings were opened in early 1923. Four other buildings were added to the quadrangle over the next four decades, and five faculty and administrators' residences and a small residential quadrangle were built. The school was renamed the Presbyterian School of Christian Education. The southernmost building and property have recently been sold to the Baptist Theological Seminary, which plans to build on the site, possibly completing the south end of the quadrangle. The school is a radical contrast to the seminary across Brook Road, representing Virginia's shift in taste to the Colonial Revival style. The buildings are distinguished, detailed examples of the Georgian Revival style designed by the Baskervill firm over a period of forty years. The campus is oriented to Westwood Avenue, and because the proposed building at the corner of Brook Road was not built, it is difficult to appreciate the school without entering the quadrangle itself.
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Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond
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