This is a very old congregation. It started in Charles Towne around 1680, the first settlement here. Eventually the town was moved to it’s current location, Charleston. The first settlement was on the far side of the Ashley River… swamps, marshes, and blood sucking bugs!
Above the steeple of St. Philips rises above the graveyard. An iron fence, seen in the background, separates the graves of these two churches. A large number of the founders of the US are buried in these graveyards.
The building itself has been damaged in numerous wars, fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes. It is a Congregational Church now and once called the Church of the dissenters. It was a Church known for speaking of political and religious freedom, the famous hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ was written in it’s sanctuary, and to this day music of all kinds are performed for the public each month.
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The Church is a unique structure, as shown above in it’s current form. Repairs and rebuilding has been done by local parishioners as well as world famous architects. More than once services were held in the brick rubble after a war and natural disaster.
Walking through the graveyard you can see a history of headstone designs for several hundred years.
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Note; these photographs were taken a few days prior to Charleston beginning to close for the Coronavirus.
I feel like I have to put this disclaimer in my posts these days too. What a great story and a beautiful place!
Thanks. I need to think of a better way to address this. I can shoot something like this and not finish processing for up to a month.
It’s not like these animals live on a city street. We can still go out, pack some food, and not get anywhere near a person. On any given day we can have 300+ photographs to work, after the deletes.
Glad you enjoyed, thanks.
Yes, I imagine you’re not shooting in heavily populated areas. These are strange times, aren’t they?
Not very often, that’s why I choose wildlife in the first place 🙂
How fortunate that you were able to explore this place and post these photographs before it would be too late to do so (at least, this year). Thank you for sharing such fascinating historical information about the round church and the cemetery. It is amazing to see how grave markers have changed over so many years. I was fascinated by the one with the rectangular stone forming a perimeter all around the gravesite, as I have learned about this type of design only recently in a new Jewish cemetery near us.
Charleston has many old churches in the center of town. Each also has a graveyard. The site you mentioned has that common rectangular stone from the 1800’s and the person here died in the yellow fever epidemic of that time. Cemeteries started around then since the graveyards were now becoming full.