Ingham & Boyd designed this beautiful church for a congregation that is still hanging on, now yoked with Swissvale Presbyterian Church. When they were built, though, the churches served different denominations: this one was a congregation of the United Presbyterians, a Pittsburgh-based splinter group that broke off from the main body of Presbyterians in the United States in 1858 and would later merge with them again in 1958, one century and two days after the split.
Every detail of this church is chosen both for its own exquisite beauty and for its contribution to the composition as a whole. Nothing is out of place.
As the cornerstone tells us, the church was built in 1915. Ingham & Boyd usually worked in a classical style for public buildings, such as their dozens of schools; but their relatively few churches are Gothic, and buildings like this one make us wish they had given us more churches.
Siting a building is an art in itself, and one to which Ingham & Boyd paid particular attention. This church looms in the distance as we come eastward on Biddle Avenue like a heavenly vision.
The view is different coming northward on Hay Street: here we are confronted by what looks like an English village.
With a long lens, we can appreciate the woodwork in these dormers.
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