Church of the Holy City (Swedenborgian)

Church of the Holy City (Swedenborgian)

Church of the Holy City (Swedenborgian) Photograph by Matthew Aungst
1857–1858, attributed to Edmund G. Lind. 1917 moved and altered, William Woodburn Potter. 1118 N. Broom St.

Twenty “receivers” of Swedenborg's religious ideas, mostly relatives of local enthusiast Daniel Lammot, established this New Church temple at Delaware Avenue and 11th streets, from which location it was later moved by Lammot's great-grandson Pierre S. du Pont when he widened the avenue. The original, Early English Gothic Revival building is attributed to the Baltimore architect Lind, who had trained in London and immigrated in 1855. Potter, a Philadelphia architect who had worked with Cope and Stewardson in 1897–1903, rebuilt it in a different form—the lancet windows were lowered, the doorway moved, and the conical, shingled steeple replaced by a broach spire entirely of stone, matching the church walls of blue Brandywine granite. The reredos and altar are of imported Caen stone, carved with grapevines and oak leaves. An oak-and-leaded-glass screen at the north end recalls one that Potter installed at Westminster Presbyterian (WL84). He also added a parish house, with an inglenook and a cloister. (Several interesting buildings across Pennsylvania Avenue are discussed in the
Northwest Wilmington
section.)

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