Yesterday after work I went on a tour of Blandford Church. I'd been hearing about the church since I got here. It was the first thing that people at the National Battlefield told me I should go see. The church was built in 1735 was later abandoned and fell into disrepair. During the Siege of Petersburg the cemetery around the church became the burial place for thousands of Confederate troops. After the war even more Confederates were re-interred there. Currently there are around 33,000 Southern along others dating all the way back to 1702 buried in Blandford Cemetery. The church was restored in 1901 by the Ladies Memorial Association and turned into a memorial to the Confederate dead. The cemetery, while a historic location, is also still operational.
Blandford Church is small, and through the old brick and timber construction is impressive, the real draw are the fifteen Tiffany stained glass windows. The pieces of glass seem to draw in ambient light and glow even on very cloudy days. My favorite is the window depicting St. Paul and memorializing the Washington Artillery (from Louisiana). The tour guides told me they didn't allow pictures inside the building, but I took some anyway. I had to be sneaky about it so I apologize for the quality and angle of the pictures.
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| St John |
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| St Mark |
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| St Bartholomew |
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| St Paul |
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