St. Andrew's Episcopal Church (Walden, New York) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids St. Andrew's Episcopal Church |
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Front (east) elevation, 2008
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| Religion | |
| Affiliation | Episcopal Church in the United States of America |
| Leadership | The Rev. Nicole R. Hanley, Priest in Charge |
| Year consecrated | 1880 |
| Location | |
| Location | Walden, NY, United States |
| Architecture | |
| Architect(s) | Charles Babcock |
| Architectural type | Church and chapel |
| Architectural style | Gothic Revival |
| Completed | 1871 |
| Specifications | |
| Direction of façade | East |
| Materials | brick, brownstone |
| U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
| Added to NRHP | June 13, 2008 |
| NRHP Reference no. | 08000513 |
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church is a historic church located in Walden, New York. It was built in 1871 and designed by Charles Babcock. He was a well-known architect who also worked with Richard Upjohn, another famous architect. The church is made of brick and built in the Gothic Revival style, which means it looks like old European churches.
This church is a special landmark in Walden. It stands out in the village's skyline and is located right in the center of town. Charles Babcock was also an Episcopal priest. He designed the church following ideas from the Ecclesiological movement. This movement wanted church buildings to look more traditional. The church has been changed a little over time, but it still looks mostly as it did when it was first built. In 2008, the church and its rectory (the priest's house) were added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Contents
About the Church Property
The church property includes two main parts: the church building itself and the rectory. There is also a chapel that was once a separate building but is now connected to the church.
What the Church Looks Like
The front of the church faces east, towards the main streets in the center of Walden. Across the street is a memorial for local soldiers who fought in the Civil War. The village hall is also nearby.
The church is a single-story building made of reddish-brown brick. It has a very steep pitched roof with a pointed top, called a gabled roof. On the southeast side, near the front door, there is a tall bell tower with a pointed top, called a spire. Both the tower and the main roof are covered with slate shingles. The bottom part of the church, called the foundation, is made of brownstone from local quarries. You can find a datestone (a stone with the building's date) in the southeast corner.
The front of the church has three narrow, tall windows called Gothic lancet windows. They sit on a brownstone course (a layer of stone). High above them is a round window called a roundel. The roof edge has a decorative brick design called a corbelled cornice. A metal Latin cross sits at the very top of the gable. The main entrance is at the bottom of the bell tower. It has double wooden doors, each with a St. Andrew's cross design. These doors are set inside a pointed Gothic arch made of three layers of brick. The bell tower has a part with louvered, recessed Gothic arches where the bells are. Above this, the tower narrows and becomes the spire, which also has a cross on top.
The south side of the church, facing Orchard Street, has four sections, called bays. Each bay has a pair of lancet windows, similar to the front ones but smaller. This side is broken by the chapel transept, which is a part of the building that sticks out. One window here was once covered with bricks. To the west of this transept, the chapel is connected to the church. On the north side, there are similar windows and a porch that leads directly into the main part of the church, called the nave. A tall brick chimney also rises from this wall.
Inside the Church
Inside the church, the sanctuary (the main worship area) has pews (church benches) arranged with a center aisle and two smaller aisles along the walls. The ceiling is made of beaded wooden boards. You can see the wooden hammerbeam roof's trusses, which are the strong support beams. Wooden posts with angled edges, called Chamfered posts, rise up to the ceiling from between the windows on both sides. A beautifully carved wooden altar with Gothic designs is at the front, in front of the lancet windows in the west wall. At the back of the church, there is an office and a room for changing clothes, called a robing room.
The basement of the church is mostly unfinished and used for storage. Other important rooms, like a kitchen and a meeting space, are located in the former chapel area.
The Rectory
The rectory is the house where the church's priest lives. It is an L-shaped brick house with two and a half stories. It is located just north of the church on Walnut Street. The front of the house has three sections and extends east from the larger main part at the back. It has windows with rounded tops and brownstone sills (the bottom part of the window frame). There is also a wooden porch. Like the church, its foundation is made of brownstone.
The inside of the rectory still has some original features and also parts from later updates. For example, the front staircase and the decorative frame around the doorway between the front and back living rooms (called architraves) are notable.
Church Design and Style
Architects like Charles Babcock and Richard Upjohn, who designed Episcopal churches in the mid-1800s, were greatly influenced by a journal called The Ecclesiologist. This journal was published by people from England's Oxford Movement. This movement wanted to bring back older, more traditional religious practices in the Anglican church. For architecture, this meant designing churches to look like the old English country parish churches, many of which were built during the Middle Ages. For example, St Michael's Church, Longstanton has a similar main shape to St. Andrew's.
Many of Upjohn's drawings have Babcock's initials on them. One church design in Upjohn's book Rural Architecture looks very much like St. Andrew's. Christ Church in Ballston Spa, which was finished by Upjohn's office after he left, also looks similar. However, its overall shape and decorations are less simple than Babcock usually designed.
For St. Andrew's, Babcock placed the tower to the side, not in the center. This was a popular design choice for Ecclesiological architects around the mid-1800s. It made the church look more Picturesque, meaning it had a more natural and interesting appearance. Because of this design and the size of the lot (the land the church is on), the church's altar area (called the chancel) is on the west side. Most churches influenced by The Ecclesiologist usually have their chancel on the liturgical east side.
The rectory, which was built a little after the church, shows more common building styles of its time. Its main design is Italianate, but the porch you see today was rebuilt in the early 1900s in a Craftsman-style.
History of St. Andrew's Church
The St. Andrew's congregation (the group of people who attend the church) started even before the current church building was constructed. It began in July 1770 when a missionary named Rev. John Sayre came to the Hudson Valley from London. After the Revolutionary War, this church shared its priest with St. George's Church in nearby Newburgh.
At first, the church members met in a simple log cabin. As the church grew, they moved to a more permanent meetinghouse. In 1826, they decided to build a larger church in Walden. At that time, Walden was a small town known mostly for its mill on the Wallkill River. The new church was finished and officially opened in September 1827.
After the Civil War, the church needed to expand again because more people were joining. In 1871, they bought the land for the current church from William Scofield for $800. A nearby street is named after him. Charles Babcock provided the plans and building documents for the new church. At that time, he was becoming the first professor at Cornell University's College of Architecture. Local builders used materials from the area, and the church was finished later that same year. The cost of building the church was so high that it took until 1880 to pay off the debt. Only then was the church formally consecrated, meaning it was officially dedicated for worship.
The rectory was built the following year, in 1881. In 1884, the congregation decided to build a chapel on the western part of the property to make room for more growth. Around 1900, the oil lamps that lit the church were replaced with electric lights. In 1915, the rectory's porch was updated, and some changes were made inside, like adding a fireplace in the back living room.
Eventually, the church decided to connect the chapel and the main church building. This started in 1924 with a simple connection. Fifteen years later, in 1939, the current link was completed, and the chapel's windows were changed. The church and rectory have remained mostly the same since then.
