Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 09/10/2003
NRHP Listing Date 01/15/2004
NRHP Reference Number 03001430
Monumental Methodist Church, home of the oldest continuously meeting Methodist congregation in the South, is situated at the corner of Dinwiddie and Queen Streets in the Old Towne Portsmouth Historic District. A 186-foot-high, two-part central tower dominates the façade of the five-bay, brick-and-stucco Victorian Gothic church. The sanctuary’s gable roof and the tower’s exterior are covered in slate. Richmond architect Albert Lawrence West (1825–1892) designed the church, which was built between 1874 and 1876 on the foundations of an earlier 1831 structure that burned in 1864. A brick, cinderblock, and concrete Sunday school building was added to the back of the sanctuary in 1954. The interior of Monumental Methodist Church is unchanged except that the organ was moved from the center balcony in the tower to the large Gothic niche at the front of the church in 1898, and early in the 20th century paneled wood replaced the wrought iron that surrounded the balconies.
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Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Updated: April 18, 2022
