Hope Episcopal Church
Mount Hope, Lancaster County, PA
Built in 1849 / 1900
The Church on a Geologic Map
Sandstone of Mount Hope:
Above: Image based on Pennsylvania DCNR geologic map: PaGEODE
Above text: Pennsylvania DCNR geologic map: PaGEODE
The Grubb family of ironmasters created a vast fortune from thousands of acres of iron-rich land here in Lancaster and Lebanon Counties. The Grubbs quarried sandstone from their Mount Hope estate to build this church. The same land supplied building stone for about 30 structures in that ironworking community. The family used this same sandstone to build their home on the property. That mansion is today’s Mount Hope Estate & Winery.
This red sandstone is part of the Hammer Creek Formation and the New Oxford formation, as shown on the map above.
1849: Chapel built with Rubble Sandstone
1900: Additions built with Ashlar Sandstone:
Above, right: 1849 chapel, built with rubble sandstone.
Above, left: 1900 additions: built with ashlar sandstone.
English Ivy Covered the Rubble Sandstone:
Image source: Hope Church, Mount Hope, William Frederic Worner, ca. 1922
The original structure eventually was completely covered with English ivy. The ivy was planted by Bishop Samuel Bowman from a cutting he received from historic Christ Church, Oxford, England.
Above: Stone masons used the Mount Hope sandstone to construct additions to the church in 1900. They added a porch to the front entry, a chancel, and a sacristy. The sacristy was modelled after a 13th-century English chapel. Philadelphia architects George Nattress and Son designed these additions.
That same year, 1900, the Lancaster New Era newspaper described the stone as “light and dark sandstone quarried on Miss Grubb’s place. [Daisy Grubb’s Mount Hope estate]. …of which there seems to be an almost inexhaustible supply.” The stone color has also been described as red and brown sandstone.
Above: The Memorial Peace Garden, in front of the rubble sandstone wall of the original 1849 structure. On the right of this photo the wall merges with the ashlar sandstone of the sacristy, added in 1900.
Above: Rubble sandstone of the main block.
Above: Ashlar sandstone of the baptistry addition, dedicated in 1903.
Description in Our Present Past (1985)
By the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County:
“Hope Episcopal Church, Mountain Road and Mount Hope Road; 1848-1849, one and one-half story, five bay sandstone Gothic Revival church, evolved in two stages; main block financed by Mrs. Harriet Amelia Buckley Grubb, the widow of the ironmaster Henry Bates Grubb; church was enlarged and embellished by Miss Daisy Grubb, the granddaughter of Henry Bates and Harriet Grubb, in 1900,” Our Present Past, page 278, Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County.