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Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont » Charlottesville Metropolitan Area » Downtown Area » Market Street Area » Christ Episcopal Church

Christ Episcopal Church

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1895–1898, McDonald Brothers. 120 W. High St.
  • (Photograph by Patricia Lynette Searl)
  • Christ Episcopal Church (Richard Guy Wilson)
  • (Photograph by Patricia Lynette Searl)

Christ Episcopal Church is on the site of an earlier brick church (c. 1824), sometimes attributed to Jefferson, although his authorship remains unclear. Remains of the earlier foundations are in the present church's basement. A Greek Revival portico (similar to that of St. Thomas, Orange) was added to Christ Church in the 1850s. The portico is known only through photographs taken c. 1870. By the 1890s the congregation wanted a new building. The present structure was designed by the Louisville (Kentucky) architect Harry P. McDonald, who had an association with the local builder, Spooner Construction Company. It is an unscholarly Gothic Revival structure, awkwardly massed, of forbidding gray granite. The interior, with its hammer-beam roof and several Tiffany Studio windows (c. 1904), is impressive.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Richard Guy Wilson et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

First United Methodist Church
McGuffey Art Center (McGuffey School)
Vickery House
Albemarle Historical Society
Jefferson-Madison Regional Library (U.S. Post Office and Courthouse)

Citation

Richard Guy Wilson et al., "Christ Episcopal Church", [Charlottesville, Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-01-CH12.

Print Source

Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont, Richard Guy Wilson and contributors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 147-147.

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