Historic St. Mark's has become an Ashland landmark
By Clare Kittredge
Photography by John W. Hession
|
|
Squatting on a knoll is a little church with a distinctly medieval flavor.
Built in 1859 atop a knoll in what is now Ashland, St. Mark's Episcopal Church is "one of the finest" mid-nineteenth-century Gothic Revival churches in New Hampshire, according to its successful nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. A rare example of half-timber framing, this is the only church of its kind in the Lakes Region.
James Garvin, New Hampshire's state architectural historian until his retirement earlier this year, says the church is far more unusual than most people know. In fact, the architect's "deceptively simple" design was part of a far larger international movement that the Ashland people probably didn't realize they were part of, says Garvin. "It's just a wonderful little church."
The church stands in what used to be the western part of Holderness-now Ashland. A former mill village on the Squam River, Ashland eventually split from Holderness to build urban amenities such as sidewalks and gas lighting, explains senior warden Jean Murphy.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the English Anglican and the American Episcopal churches began to model the designs of their new churches in both countries on older English parish churches, Garvin says.
The trend was part of the British ecclesiological movement, which focused intensely on the history and liturgy of the early English church. "The Anglican church in England and the American Episcopal church both thought they had a common architectural style. These Gothic buildings echoed the model of those wonderful little parish churches in England," Garvin says. "St. Mark's is more of an attempt to look like an early, almost medieval, rustic English parish church."
By the 1850s, the Gothic Revival style was considered the "preferred style" for Episcopalian churches, and St. Mark's was designed by ardent advocate New York City architect Joseph Coleman Hart.
Hart campaigned for the Gothic style in his 1857 book as the only style appropriate for Protestant Christian churches. He identified the "pagan" Renaissance style with the Church of Rome, according to St. Mark's nomination papers for the National Register of Historic Places.
Hart-who designed another church in Brattleboro, Vermont-delivered an "ardent polemic" supporting the style for Protestant churches at a meeting of the American Institute of Architects in 1859.
With great ceremony, the church's cornerstone was laid in August 1859. A poetic account in the August 17, 1859, edition of the N.H. Patriot described the procession: "The white-robed maidens and priests, the aged man with long, snow-white beard, side of a wee toddling thing, the comely matron and the sturdy farmer in his white shirt-sleeves, the gay colored dresses of the ladies, with their fluttering ribbons and bright parasols, all combined to form a charming picture."
The first services in the new church were held on Christmas Day 1859. The first child baptized in the church was Ashley Whipple, whose brother George Whipple was one of three doctors to win the Nobel prize for medicine in 1934 for their discoveries in the field of liver therapy for anemia.
Rustic adaptation
Garvin says the larger Gothic cathedrals of England or France are quite different from the smaller Gothic Revival parish churches like St. Mark's, which are often somewhat rustic in materials and asymmetrical.
"Half-timbering in England used heavy timber frames with the voids between the framing members filled with brickwork, which was often covered with lime plaster," Garvin explains. "Half-timbering is often regarded as a characteristic English form of medieval or post-medieval construction, so Hart's adoption of the appearance of this method of construction was a clue that he was trying to suggest a direct ancestral connection between the Ashland church and medieval England."
Although less grand than New Hampshire's larger Gothic Revival churches, such as St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Concord, "[St. Mark's] original and skillful design certainly places it among the first rank of the smaller village churches," according to its nomination papers.
The church and its parish house were named to the national register in 1984.
Other architectural details
Sitting on a high, rough granite foundation, St. Mark's features brick panels between timbers, flared eaves, a gable-roofed nave and side entry porch. The Gothic, arched stained-glass windows are typical of the Gothic Revival style. Although close to its original state, St. Mark's underwent a few changes over the years.
Sometime in the nineteenth century, a tall chimney was built on its north side to vent smoke from a wood furnace. This now vents an oil furnace.
Around 1913, an addition was put on the nave to accommodate a new organ. Andrew Carnegie donated $650 toward the organ's $1,647 purchase from the Estey Organ Co. in Brattleboro, Vermont. This replaced the original bellows pump organ, for which a boy "manned the bellows" each Sunday for $9 per year, according to church documents. The original organ, with its two finger-activated keyboards and third pedal keyboard, had been damaged when dry winter air was heated, according to Concord organ builder Jeremy Cooper. So when Cooper rebuilt the organ in 1985, he converted the key action from "tubular-pneumatic" to mechanical action to protect the organ from similar damage.
Damaged by fire in 1917, the vestry was restored. In the late 1990s, the tower underwent a $63,000 restoration. Steel supports across the nave strengthened slightly bowed-out walls. More recently, the parish hall was renovated and made handicapped-accessible.
Inside the church, muted light from several stained-glass windows and a central rose window-all donated by parishioners-softly illuminate the plaster panels, board wainscoting and wooden pews. Donated brass vases and a brass eagle lectern gleam in the half-light near needlepoint cushions handmade by parishioners.
"Most everything here was given," says Beverly Frost, a longtime church member who puts together the church scrapbooks. "It's very quaint and beautiful," adds Murphy.
