Monumental Methodist Church, home of the oldest continuously meeting Methodist congregation in the South, is situated at the corner of Dinwiddie and Queen Streets in the Old Towne Portsmouth Historic District. A 186-foot-high, two-part central tower dominates the façade of the five-bay, brick-and-stucco Victorian Gothic church. The sanctuary’s gable roof and the tower’s exterior are covered in slate. Richmond architect Albert Lawrence West (1825–1892) designed the church, which was built between 1874 and 1876 on the foundations of an earlier 1831 structure that burned in 1864. A brick, cinderblock, and concrete Sunday school building was added to the back of the sanctuary in 1954. The interior of Monumental Methodist Church is unchanged except that the organ was moved from the center balcony in the tower to the large Gothic niche at the front of the church in 1898, and early in the 20th century paneled wood replaced the wrought iron that surrounded the balconies.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia