Archive Record
Images
Metadata
Object Type |
Property File |
Title |
342 Meeting Street (Second Presbyterian Church) |
Scope & Content |
Constructed ca. 1811; restored 1990-91. James and John Gordon, architect-builders. Organized as an outgrowth of the First (Scots) Presbyterian Church and officially known as the Second Presbyterian Church of the City and Suburbs of Charleston, the congregation attracted a new generation of Scottish merchants who planned an ambitious building outside the boundaries of the city. This church faces the public space known initially as Wragg Square and later dubbed Ashmead Place. It was designed and built by James and John Gordon, Scottish masons and builders who subsequently built St. Paul's Church at 126 Coming Street in Radcliffeborough. A portico in the Tuscan order with a deep entablature and ribbed frieze supports a pediment in which there is a large lunette window. Similar fanlights appear over the doors. Lacking side doorways, the south facade of the church features a fully developed pediment supported by a wide entablature and engaged Tuscan columns. The spire, intended by an early minister of the church to be a "finger pointing upward" was never completed. Its rusticated base, decorated with bull's eye windows, supports a single octagonal cupola supported by Corinthian pilasters. The first minister of the church, the Reverend Andrew Flynn, was replaced after about twenty years by the Reverend Dr. Thomas Smyth, an Irish Presbyterian minister who kept close ties with Calvinists in the British Isles. Severe acoustical problems inspired church leaders to alter the interior in 1833 by raising the floor 3 feet and lowering the ceiling by 16 feet. After severe damage by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the original ceiling height was restored and remnants of a plaster decoration incorporating the seal of South Carolina and other devices were restored to the area above the Venetian stained-glass window on the east wall. (Poston, Buildings of Charleston.) File contains building history from Architectural Guide to Charleston (by Simons & Thomas); photocopy of a "tour" of the sanctuary; newspaper articles, including early (historical) items and DYKYC (incomplete, no date); portion of a technical report on post-Hugo repairs ("Technical Evaluation Factors"). Image #2 from Guide to Charleston Illustrated, 1875. |
Subjects |
Second Presbyterian Church (Charleston, S.C.) Church buildings--South Carolina--Charleston |
Search Terms |
Meeting Street Churches/Synagogues/Houses of Worship Mazyckborough and Wraggborough Wragg Square/Wragg Street/Aiken's Row Ashmead Place |
Physical Description |
1 File Folder |
Related Records |
Show Related Records... |
Object ID # |
MEETING.342.1 |