All Souls Congregational Church is an historic church at 10 Broadway in
Bangor, Maine. Built in 1911, it is a landmark in the city, designed by the noted proponent of the Gothic Revival,
Ralph Adams Cram. It was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 1992.
The church is affiliated with the
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Anabaptist traditions, and with approximatel ...
; the current pastor is Rev. Chad L. Poland.
Architecture and history
The All Souls Church is located on the fringe of downtown Bangor, on a rise east of
Kenduskeag Stream
Kenduskeag Stream is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed June 22, 2011 stream in the U.S. state of Maine. It is a tributary of the Penobscot River. The stream rises at ...
that overlooks the central business district. It occupies an entire city block, bounded by State, French, and York Streets, and by Stetson Square and Broadway to the east. The main sanctuary is a cruciform stone structure, with its long axis oriented east-west, with the
chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse.
Ov ...
set at the western end. It has a steeply pitched gabled roof, with a relatively slender tower set at the
crossing. A shorter square bell tower is set at the southeast corner of the crossing. The main facade faces east, and has a center entrance set in an arched recess, with a large rose window above. The building's corners and side walls are buttressed.
The First Congregational Church first built on this site in 1822. That building burned down in 1830, and was replaced by a building designed by Charles Pond. This was replaced in 1859 by a structure designed by
Harvey Graves in 1859, using the foundation of the previous building. The Graves church burned down in the
Great Fire of 1911. The First Congregation then joined forces with the Third Congregation, whose 1902 church was also destroyed in the fire, to build a new church on the site of the First's old one. They commissioned the noted Gothic Revival proponent
Ralph Adams Cram to design the building, which incorporates stone elements of the Third's building. It was built at a cost of $110,000. Its stained glass windows, designed by Boston stained glass artist Charles J. Connick, were added between 1913 and 1947.
[
The building was expanded in 1953–54 with the addition of a school building, designed by local architect Eaton W. Tarbell. This addition was designed in a ]modernist
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
style but was intended to harmonize with and defer to the original building.[ It is now named for Arlan A. Baillie.
]
See also
*
References
External links
All Souls Congregational Church Bangor web site
{{Authority control
United Church of Christ churches in Maine
Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine
Gothic Revival church buildings in Maine
Churches completed in 1911
Buildings and structures in Bangor, Maine
National Register of Historic Places in Bangor, Maine
Churches in Penobscot County, Maine