Taylor's Chapel is an historic

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

located at

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is a

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

style chapel located in a quarter acre fenced-in plot, which also includes a graveyard, within Mount Pleasant Park in northeast Baltimore. The structure is a small, mid-19th-century country church, built of stone, covered with

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

, painted white, and has a gable roof. The interior features frescoes on the walls and ceiling, attributed by tradition to the Italian-American painter

Constantino Brumidi Constantino Brumidi (July 26, 1805 – February 19, 1880) was a Greek-Italian-American historical painter, best known and honored for his fresco work, Apotheosis of Washington, in the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Parentage and early life ...

. The frescoes are ''

trompe-l'œil ''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...

'' paintings of classical architectural detailing, including pilasters, panels, coffering, and ornaments. It has remained completely unaltered since its construction in 1853. It was built as a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

chapel by the Taylor family on their Mt. Pleasant plantation. In 1925 the City of Baltimore purchased the land surrounding the chapel and burial grounds for use as a public golf course. The site of the chapel and burial grounds was left to a self-perpetuating board of trustees. Taylor's Chapel is considered the mother church of St. John's United Methodist Church of Hamilton. Taylor's Chapel 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 v ...

in 1983.

References

External links

*, including photo from 1983, at Maryland Historical Trust
Taylor's Chapel – Explore Baltimore HeritageFind A Grave: Taylor's Chapel CemeteryTaylor's Chapel - The Historical Marker Database
Churches in Baltimore United Methodist churches in Maryland Properties of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in Baltimore Churches completed in 1853 19th-century Methodist church buildings in the United States Greek Revival church buildings in Maryland Northeast Baltimore Baltimore City Landmarks {{Maryland-church-stub