The outside we see at St. Peter’s is a stucco covering of the original brick underneath which was revealed in 1979 when the Vestry decided to restucco the church rather than to remove it permanently. Apparently, there was some discussion then on which way to go.
A May 1979 Vestry meeting estimated the cost of a restucco by Kenneth Covert $36,947. They applied for a Virginia Historic Landmarks Grant (today the Virginia Department of Historic Resources). Vestry minutes never indicated whether the grant was received.
Was the stucco original to the building in 1836 or put on later ? The consensus is that it was added after the 1849 fire. Ralph Fall thinks it was added later after the construction of the church. He states in Hidden Village in 1849 that the “unstuccoed brick structure suffered considerable damage.” Jim Patton isn’t sure but in a letter to E. Conway Davis in 1979 he says it could have been added in 1850 to cover “the scars and patching" and thus favored restuccoing the church. There is also brick work around the portico that is different from the original that shows it may have been placed later.
Stucco was a choice in early part of the 19th century but its use was not universal. James Patton’s home at Gay Mont had on the west walls stucco that was designed in 1820 and 1839 by Benjamin Latrobe. Latrobe designed stucco over brick in churches like St. John’s Washington and St. Paul’s Alexandria. Other church buildings were more plain without stucco.
The 1849 damage was described in an newspaper article attached to the minute book– flames spread over the roof and reached steeple. The steeple and bell and organ destroyed. It was then the George Stevens organ was purchased. In 1868 after a lightning attach the steeple and bell were removed and the “present gable roof without a steeple was constructed.” There was much less damage. Was it due to the stucco or more localized nature of the lightning strike?
Stucco is a material made of water and sand or limestone. It is used for finishing the exterior of a building, and can be applied over almost any surface. Stucco is cheap, versatile and can be found in almost every color.
As a weather-repellent coating, stucco protected the building from wind and rain penetration, and also offered a certain amount of fire protection. It was an inexpensive material that could simulate finely dressed stonework. By the nineteenth century "stucco," although originally denoting fine interior ornamental plasterwork, had gained wide acceptance in the United States to describe exterior plastering.
Up until the late 1800s, stucco, like mortar, was primarily lime-based. Before the mid-to-late nineteenth century, stucco consisted primarily of hydrated or slaked lime, water and sand, with straw or animal hair included as a binder.
The popularization of portland cement changed the composition of stucco, as well as mortar, to a harder material. Portland cement was first manufactured in the United States in 1871, and it gradually replaced natural cement. After about 1900, most stucco was composed primarily of portland cement, mixed with some lime. With the addition of portland cement, stucco became even more versatile and durable. There were a number of additives (mud ,clay, waxes, fats, oils, varnish, sugar) that added to the strength and durability of the stucco.
The idea of strengthening the stucco was appealing in 1979. Patton urged the Vestry to go slow on the project.
In late 1979, the stucco was removed and as Fall writes “preparatory to placing a new cement-mix mixture of over the brick-work; the finished work was painted in a ‘sand-shade covering.’”
For a time in December, 1979 St. Peter’s resembled the church 140 years earlier albeit a few modifications.
Jim Patton’s St. Peter’s file has a envelope of both color and black and white pictures with many closeups. These are far superior to the pictures in Hidden Village which are taken further away from the brick. Patton also labeled the pictures where they were taken. These may be the only ones available for this renovation.
What did they find when they removed the stucco ?
1. East wall -Flemish bond brick pointing
2. West Wall- English bond
3. Around and over the entire top arch of each of the 6 windows – “fine decoration of soft brick."
4. Church portico – revealed ends of small beams imbedded at certain places in the bricks, including where a former pediment was located on the front of the structure probably before the fire of 1868 or of 1849 when steeples had burned on both occasions.
Patton corresponded with Vernon Perdue Davis in Richmond an expert in antebellum churches and discussion centered around the strange construction at the ends of the portico. He mentioned the portico and suggested the ends were closed after the original construction and the brick work was not of the same quality as the originally. Davis suggests possibly the ends of the portico indicated a vestibule present as with so many antebellum churches.
5. Front – east and sides
Door to gallery east side showing bricked in wall of a larger opening. A similar arrangement is on the west side.
Here is the similar opening on the west side:
6. Types of brick used
In Patton’s files there is a card indicating the types of bricks: 