Welcome to the Sheldon Church Ruins (Prince Williams Parish Church).
Sheldon Church, built between 1745-1753, is said to be the first conscious attempt in America to imitate a Greek temple. The land was donated by the Bull family from the original holdings of the first land owner, Edmund Bellinger, who was awarded the lands by a patent dated May 7, 1698, promulgated by the Lords Proprietors. The name Sheldon Church was used in honor of the Bull family whose Carolina plantation and ancestral home in Warwickshire, England, were both called Sheldon Hall.
A political and military center for the area during the Revolutionary War, the church served by concealing arms and ammunition in the Bull family vault and by providing a place for Continental troops to drill. Sheldon Church was burned by General Augustine Prevost's British troops in May 1779 and was later rebuilt.
It has long been thought the church was burned again in January 1865 by troops serving under General John Logan, the commander of Sherman's 15th Corps. However, recent scholarship indicates that in early 1865 freemen ransacked the church building for materials and Union forces were not responsible for the destruction of the church. It was never rebuilt. Several early South Carolina leaders are buried in the graveyard.
The ruins of the church still retain their classic simplicity. The original three-and-one-half foot thick colonnaded walls of Flemish bond and the four all-header bond portico columns remain.The western facade had an elegant portico, crowned by a triangular pediment with bulls-eye window and cornice with dentils. The large front doorway had a fanlight above and two round-headed windows, symmetrically spaced, on either side. On the north, five bays between the engaged columns were filled with a single tier of tall, round-headed windows. The other bay was left open for a portico. At the eastern end, above the alter, was a Palladian window, with a round-headed window on each side.
Sheldon Church was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on October 22, 1970. Old Sheldon Church Road has been designated a South Carolina Scenic Byway.
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Sheldon Church
Welcome to the Sheldon Church Ruins (Prince Williams Parish Church).
Sheldon Church, built between 1745-1753, is said to be the first conscious attempt in America to imitate a Greek temple. The land was donated by the Bull family from the original holdings of the first land owner, Edmund Bellinger, who was awarded the lands by a patent dated May 7, 1698, promulgated by the Lords Proprietors. The name Sheldon Church was used in honor of the Bull family whose Carolina plantation and ancestral home in Warwickshire, England, were both called Sheldon Hall.
A political and military center for the area during the Revolutionary War, the church served by concealing arms and ammunition in the Bull family vault and by providing a place for Continental troops to drill. Sheldon Church was burned by General Augustine Prevost's British troops in May 1779 and was later rebuilt.
It has long been thought the church was burned again in January 1865 by troops serving under General John Logan, the commander of Sherman's 15th Corps. However, recent scholarship indicates that in early 1865 freemen ransacked the church building for materials and Union forces were not responsible for the destruction of the church. It was never rebuilt. Several early South Carolina leaders are buried in the graveyard.
The ruins of the church still retain their classic simplicity. The original three-and-one-half foot thick colonnaded walls of Flemish bond and the four all-header bond portico columns remain.The western facade had an elegant portico, crowned by a triangular pediment with bulls-eye window and cornice with dentils. The large front doorway had a fanlight above and two round-headed windows, symmetrically spaced, on either side. On the north, five bays between the engaged columns were filled with a single tier of tall, round-headed windows. The other bay was left open for a portico. At the eastern end, above the alter, was a Palladian window, with a round-headed window on each side.
Sheldon Church was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on October 22, 1970. Old Sheldon Church Road has been designated a South Carolina Scenic Byway.
View Larger Map