By Carol Vaughn, Delmarva Daily Times. (Virginia)
Facebook photo of Belle Haven Presbyterian Church.
The cheery red front doors of Belle Haven Presbyterian Church will close for the last time after worship services on Easter.
“It’s for sale — someone can turn it into a restaurant if they want to,” said church treasurer, trustee and elder Nancy Bunce.
The manse next door is also for sale.
The congregation, which dates to 1879, at its high point reached 180 members — that was back in the 1960s.
“Plenty of Sundays there was somebody in every pew,” said Betsy Mapp, Bunce’s fellow trustee and elder, who also is the church clerk.
Mapp grew up two doors down from the church and recently returned to live in the same house in which she grew up.
Inside the sanctuary. (Photo from Facebook.)
One of the salient memories many longtime Belle Haven residents have of the church is of its carillon, which broadcast hymns from the steeple at 5 p.m. each day.
“If I was not home by the time the chimes quit, I got grounded,” Mapp said.
The “bells of Belle Haven,” as Mapp calls them, will fall silent on Easter.
The church was started as an outgrowth of Holmes Presbyterian Church inCheriton not long after the Civil War ended.
“They decided Belle Haven needed a church,” said Mapp.