Christ Church Guilford
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Christ Church Guilford
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Christ Church Guilford, September 2009
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| Location | North of Guilford at 6800 Oakland Mills Rd., Guilford, Maryland |
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| Coordinates | 39°11′4″N 76°49′41″W / 39.18444°N 76.82806°WCoordinates: 39°11′4″N 76°49′41″W / 39.18444°N 76.82806°W |
| Area | 2 acres (0.81 ha) |
| Built | 1809 |
| Architectural style | Georgian |
| NRHP Reference # | 78001469 |
| Added to NRHP | January 30, 1978 |
The Christ Church Guilford, historically known as the "Old Brick Church," is an historic Episcopal church located at Guilford, now part of Columbia, in Howard County, Maryland. The small Georgian church was completed in 1809. It was constructed of handmade brick laid in English garden wall brick bond with unmarked joints.
The original church was established in 1727 as Queen Caroline Parish Church. Trinity Church (Elkridge, Maryland), grew out of Christ Church. The structure replaced a ca1711 frame building and is the second church building to be built on the 2 acres (0.81 ha) plot deeded to the parish in 1738 by Caleb Dorsey. It is the oldest church building still in use in Howard County.
The brick church has a steep gabled roof and is laid in English garden wall brick bond. The structure, two bays wide and three bays deep, faces east with twin entrance doors in the north and south bays. Each bay is rectangular, surmounted by a Federal-style transom and reached by two stone steps. The nave windows are rectangular, holding twelve-over-twelve lites and, decorated with splayed brick flat arched lintels. The interior contains a gallery which extends around three sides of the church.
The Christ Church was funded by a parishioner poll tax on tobacco at Elkridge Landing, paying church and sheriff expenses. During the early 1800s the Episcopal Church in Maryland grew very slowly. The American Revolutionary War created tremendous conflicts within the Episcopal Church in the colonies. The clergy, who had been ordained in England, had taken an oath of allegiance to the king. This conflicted with their Oath of Fidelity required by the local assembly. Some clergy returned to England and others simply stopped preaching. After the end of the Revolutionary War the Church of England, the Episcopal Church’s parent church, was disestablished as the state religion. Having lost its official government support, the church was low on funds, and few new churches were built.
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