Photo credit:
Benjamin Buchanan, 11/10/2024
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St. John's Church, Western Run Parish
Inventory No.:
BA-57
Other Name(s):
St. John’s Protestant Episcopal Church; St. John’s in the Valley; St. John’s Protestant Episcopal Church Rectory
Date Listed:
1/8/2026
Location:
3738 Butler Road (MD 128), Glyndon, Baltimore County
Category:
Building
Period/Date of Construction:
1821-1945
Architect/Builder:
Shorb, Joshua (Church design and construction);
Edmunds, James R., Jr. (Church renovation design)
Boundary Description:
Beginning for the first at a distance of 472.80 feet from the end of the North 48 degree 53 minute 25 second West 491.94 foot line of Parcel A as shown on a plat entitled “Section Two, Hughes Farm” and recorded in the Plat Records of Baltimore County, Maryland in Plat Book E.H.K. Jr. 41, Folio 22, said point being on the western right of way line of Butler Road; thence binding on and running with a portion of said right of way line, referring all courses and distances of this description to the Maryland Coordinate System, (NAD 83/1991) South 32 degrees 16 minutes 15 seconds West 471.15 feet; thence South 35 degrees 43 minutes 42 seconds West 57.48 feet; thence a line curving to the right having a radius of 428.96 feet, for a distance of 51.50 feet (the arc of said curve being subtended by a chord bearing and distance of South 39 degrees 33 minutes 40 seconds West 51.47 feet) to the Southeastern right of way line of Butler Road and relocated Piney Grove Road as shown on SHA Plat number 55917; thence binding on and running with a portion of said relocated right of way line; South 65 degrees 09 minutes 47 degrees West 100.10 feet; thence South 54 degrees 14 minutes 04 seconds West 25.00 feet; thence North 69 degrees 33 minutes 05 seconds West 16.00 feet; thence South 55 degrees 51 minutes 27 seconds West 15.00 feet to the northeastern right of way line of Piney Grove Road; thence binding on and running with a portion of said right of way line North 34 degrees 08 minutes 43 seconds West 47.04 feet; thence South 59 degrees 00 minutes 18 seconds West 5.45 feet; thence a line curving to the left having a radius of 292.83 feet, for a distance of 124.96 feet (the arc of said curve being subtended by a chord bearing of North 43 degrees 23 minutes 59 seconds West 124.01 feet); thence North 55 degrees 37 minutes 28 seconds West 82.80 feet; thence North 66 degrees 39 minutes 00 seconds West 91.78 feet to the centerline of Piney Grove Road; thence binding on and running with a portion of said centerline; North 56 degrees 03 minutes 15 seconds West 39.83 feet; thence leaving the centerline of said road and binding on and running with, reversely thereof, the South 41 degree 28 minute 00 second West 661.02 foot line of Parcel A of the aforementioned plat; North 32 degrees 23 minutes 30 seconds East 670.22 feet to the end of the aforementioned North 48 degree 53 minute 25 second West 491.94 foot line of Parcel A; thence South 57 degrees 36 minutes 30 seconds East 472.89 feet to the point of beginning; having an area of 313,550 square feet or 7.198 acres of land, more or less, as described by Daft-McCune-W.
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Description:
St. John's Church Western Run and its associated structures and adjacent burial ground stand at the corner of Butler and Piney Grove roads and across from the intersection of Butler and Belfast roads. With its 105-foot-tall stone tower, the Gothic Revival church of 1869 to 1870 looms prominently above the farmhouses and fields of its neighborhood. St. John's, constructed of local or Butler stone, replaced a similarly situated but dramatically different, earlier building of 1816 to 1820 that burned on Christmas Eve, 1867. In 1842, a parishioner donated the funds to construct a 2.5-story stone parsonage or rectory adjacent to the Piney Grove side of the property, along with an encircling stone wall. The side-hall plan dwelling has housed each rector of the church and their families ever since construction. This bucolic end of the property retains a simple stone stable that became a garage by the 1920s. The plastered interior of the church originally featured painted decoration and simple fittings. In 1927, a largely new congregation assumed leadership of the parish and under the direction of architect James R. Edmonds, Jr., began a two-year campaign to improve the exterior of the church with additional stonework detailing, as well as the interior with features more in keeping with Gothic Revival decoration. The last exterior change of this period was the construction of a stone “lych gate,” built in the manner of such entry structures for medieval churches in England.
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Significance:
St John’s Church, with its buildings and landscape is significant at the local level in the area of Religion because it is a rare example of a rural Episcopal church first established and constructed in the aftermath of the American Revolution and in the early years of the Episcopal diocese of Maryland when the Episcopal church had not yet regained its earlier prominence. This was a period when the Episcopal denomination, unlike other religious groups such as Methodists and Baptists, was struggling to regain its former hegemony. The church is also significant for its architecture. As a structure of the Gothic Revival, this 1869-70 church falls into a group of superb examples of this preferred style following precepts of the Ecclesiological movement that first swept the Anglican church and later the Episcopal Church in the United States in the 19th century. The building’s exterior is nearly – with certain exceptions – intact as built, and surviving photos of the first interior show a fully developed chancel and altar. Further architectural changes came with a new group of wealthy parishioners and a thorough interior renovation designed by Baltimore architect James Edmunds, Jr., of the firm Joseph Evans Sperry, with the influence of late Gothic Revival and Anglo-Catholic precepts then in vogue for prominent urban churches. These alterations, now nearly a century old, have largely been preserved and enhance ongoing worship activity.
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