Sunday, February 15, 2009

Church on Sunday: Old and new at R. E. Lee

The steeple of the R. E. Lee Episcopal Church with the twilight moon.

The stone church dates to 1882 (see it from the front in an earlier post, here), but the steeple was replaced in 2007. The new steeple is 57 feet tall and covered in 1,800 hand-pressed metal shingles. The crown of the weathervane (salvaged from the original steeple), which was newly-covered in gold leaf by church parishioners, still shows bullet holes, reportedly from soldiers discharging their weapons a final time upon returning home from war. (More details on rebuilding the steeple here.)

4 comments:

Greg Dimitriadis said...

That's an excellent photo. The moon is almost perfectly aligned with the spire.

Hilda said...

I actually like the contrast between the old and the new. But I'm sure there was some protest from members of the community back then.

Love your photo and how you caught the moon right on top of the spire.

PeterParis said...

Nice preservation work and nice photo! (The second link did not work for me.)

abc said...

Great photo with the contrast between the two shapes, materials and colors against the blue sky.