![]() ![]() Philip's as "spacious, and executed in a very handsome taste, exceeding everything of that kind which we have in America." The proud new edifice was sited to protrude into Church Street, so that the tower and porticoes provided a terminus to the vista. The English aesthete Edmund Burke later described St. It antedated Christ Church in Philadelphia, which was the second church in America to use an applied order, and Peter Harrison's King's Chapel in Boston, the second church for which a giant order portico was designed. Philip's undoubtedly was the most sophisticated church building in the English colonies when it was built. ![]() Magnus the Martyr, London, or on that of St. The steeple, a polygonal tower topped by a polygonal lantern, dome and cupola, perhaps was based on the steeple of Wren's St. The brick church featured not only a steeple but also three monumental Roman Doric porticoes, depicted in an illustration from London's Gentleman's Magazine in 1753. That a sophisticated taste in architecture was present early in Charleston was illustrated by the second St. On the other hand, the Congregational, Anabaptist and French Calvinist churches and the Quaker Meeting House, all of which were built about the same time, were simple, steepleless structures, more a tribute to the Lords Proprietors' guarantee of liberty of conscience than to the architectural aspirations of their congregations.Ĭolonial Charleston was the wealthiest of English cities in America, and the city's elite maintained close ties with London. The Gothic steeple had been in disfavor, due to the influence of the Italian Renaissance, until it was revived by Wren and classicized through the use of arches, pilasters and other devices. The intriguing question is whether or not this first "English Church" had a tall pointed steeple inspired by Wren's steepled churches in London, built after the Great Fire of 1666. It was built of black cypress upon a brick foundation. John Oldmixon wrote in 1708 that it was "large and stately enough," and the "most remarkable" of the town's public buildings. Philip's Church, the first Anglican parish, was erected in 1681-82 at the southeast comer of the Meeting and Broad Streets, the site now occupied by St. Even before that, the '"English Church" was dominant and its houses of worship were public buildings. In church building, the translation of Palladio's influence came through the designs of Christopher Wren and James Gibbs.Īlthough South Carolina's religious freedom (for all non-Catholics) attracted many Dissenters, the Church of England was the established church after 1706. Charleston's church architecture, like the city's architecture in general, is overwhelmingly of English derivation, as might be expected in an English colonial establishment which has been referred to as a "Little London."ĭuring the Colonial era the prevailing architecture was English Georgian, which was founded securely on the work of the late Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, as interpreted by Indigo Jones and subsequent English architects. ![]()
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