MYSTERY PHOTO: Formal building

Here’s a formal building somewhere in the Lowcountry for you to identify.  Send your guess to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com. And don’t forget to include your name and the town in which you live.

Our previous Mystery Photo

Our Jan. 13 mystery, “Rocky Top” got a lot of correct guesses from Charleston-area residents, who recognized the photo as the top of the Circular Congregational Church on Meeting Street.

Congratulations to:  Jim McMahon , Freida McDuffie, Melinda Norris, Stephen Yetman, all of Charleston; Chris Brooks of Mount Pleasant; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Marnie Huger of Richmond, Va.; Bill Segars of Hartsville; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; and Jay Altman of Columbia.

Graf and Huger shared similar information: “According to the National Park Service, English Congregationalists, Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, and French Huguenots of the original settlement of Charles Town founded this dissenting congregation, known as the Independent Church, around 1681. Their first church building, erected before 1695, was known as the White Meeting House, for which Meeting Street was named. A second meeting house was built at this site in 1732. 

“In 1804 to 1806 this church was replaced by a circular structure designed by architect Robert Mills, often referred to as the first professionally trained American architect, and a Charleston native. The present church is named for Mill’s earlier church, which burned during an 1861 fire, and stood in ruins until the 1886 earthquake destroyed it completely. Designed by architects Stevenson and Green, the Richardsonian Romanesque church was constructed as the city was rebuilding after that earthquake and reused bricks from the older structure. The graveyard is the city’s oldest burial ground with one monument remaining from the 17th century.”

Peel added, “Today’s Circular Congregational Church is not actually circular in form. Rather it is a ‘modified cloverleaf’ design, but continues to be known as the ‘Circular Church’ in honor of its historical significance to the community and the congregation that it served. The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 1973 and today is home to an active congregation of parishioners in the United Church of Christ.”

• Send us a mystery:  If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!)   Send it along to editor@charlestoncurrents.com.