Historic Christ Church-Gallery

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Gallery

The gallery at Christ Church stands in the south transept, supported by four slender, fluted columns set in its north side, or leading edge. It runs east-west across the south transept and extends some nine feet from the south wall. A stair in the southeast corner provides access to the gallery space. The stair occupies what was originally a single pew similar to the pew in the same location in the north transept.

The gallery floor is constructed of heart pine and stepped in three levels, each of which accommodates a bench. The first two benches have paneled backs, while the third is flush with the south wall. The benches’ plank seating is only eleven inches wide, much more narrow than the seating in the pews below. The north side face has raised paneling in a pattern like that in the pew wainscot: horizontal raised panels set over longer, vertical ones.

View of the gallery looking south. The small hole in the ox-eye window over the gallery provides access to the roof structure.

This view of the gallery from the top level of the pulpit shows the wainscot paneling on the north edge and the stairway leading from the southeast to the gallery space. The columns are anchored in the pew flooring below.

The materials and craftsmanship suggest a construction date sometime around the mid to third quarter of the eighteenth century. Records in the second vestry book for Christ Church Parish from 1759 to 1786 do not discuss the construction of the gallery or any alterations or repairs to it. Vestry minutes usually discussed building projects of this magnitude in some detail, so it seems likely the gallery was installed sometime prior to 1759 and probably discussed in the parish’s first vestry book, which ran from 1665 to 1759.

The gallery functioned as overflow seating for the parish. Because the craftsmanship, seating and paneling is not as elaborate as that in the pews below, it was not a private gallery or pew for members of the parish gentry, as those at sister parish St. Mary’s White Chapel were. It also did not function as a slave gallery or a space for a choir, which was not a part of the worship service in colonial Virginia.

Portions of the stair handrailing and balusters were replaced sometime early in the twentieth century. An observer writing around 1902 noted “most of the railing to [the] pulpit and gallery stairs is gone.” The remaining parts of the gallery are thought to be original to the time of construction.