The history of St. David’s Episcopal Church of Roland Park reflects the growth of Baltimore City northwards at the end of the 19th century, at a time when Baltimore was a shipping and industrial powerhouse. In 1891, 500 acres of land in northwest Baltimore were purchased by a syndicate of English and Midwestern developers – The Roland Park Company – and construction began on the planned garden community of Roland Park.

 

The rapid development of Roland Park was made possible by the construction of the Lake Roland Electric Railway around 1892, which ran from Guilford Avenue north through Hampden and up the center of Roland Avenue. By that time, there were several hundred families in the neighborhood. Many early residents of Roland Park were parishioners at Old St. Paul’s, Christ Church, St. Michael and All Angels, Emmanuel, and other downtown Episcopal churches, and soon they wanted to attend church closer to home. In the early 1890s, Episcopalians in Roland Park attended services in the home of Mr. and Mrs. C. DePeyster Valk. After the building expansion of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church farther south on Roland Avenue in Hampden, it became the parish church for Roland Park’s Episcopalians.

 

By 1905, St. Mary’s had again become too crowded, and a group of Roland Park residents met to consider the feasibility of building an Episcopal church in Roland Park. It is recorded that St. Mary’s in Hampden was considered to be “too far to walk, and too close to drive.” Mr. and Mrs. Charles Dickey offered to donate the land for the church, and, because it was for a place of worship, the Roland Park Company offered it at a discounted price of $11,000. The land consisted of three lots at the church’s current location on the northwest corner of Roland Avenue and Oakdale Road, extending back to Long Lane.

 

The original building plan was to be an English Gothic style church, built of Falls Road granite by the architectural firm of Wyatt and Nolting for a cost of about $45,000. A second design was presented by the firm of Elliott and Emmart, whose plan reflected the church’s current Romanesque Renaissance style, at a cost of $35,000.  The architect’s rationale for utilizing the ‘Renaissance’ style over the gothic was that gothic represented an “artistic anachronism” while the newer style represented a step forward. The church decided on the Renaissance style building, parish records noting “most of the members being largely influenced by the substantially lower cost.” Like many houses in the neighborhood being built at the time, the church is built of concrete with a slate roof, a reaction to the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904.

 

Initially, the name of the church agreed on by the Vestry and sent for approval to the Bishop of Maryland, was to be All Angels Church. The bishop rejected the name “most decidedly”, as there were several other local churches with names involving angels, and he thought it would be confusing. The vestry had no choice but to reconsider, and the second submission had to be a name that would be distinctive and not commonly used.  The name of St. David’s was proposed in honor of the patron saint of Wales. This name was accepted. The great window on Roland Avenue depicts St. David and includes the shield of the Diocese of St. David’s, and the Welsh flag flies in the nave across from the flag of Maryland.

 

Funds for the new building were raised by voluntary subscriptions from more than 100 families. Construction began immediately, and the first service was held in the unfinished crypt of the building on All Saints’ Day, 1906. The building was completed in the spring of 1907, and the first service in the church was held on Palm Sunday, March 24th, 1907. By canon law, church buildings are not consecrated while there is still a mortgage on them. St. David’s mortgage was paid off in early 1925, and the church was finally consecrated on June 8, 1925. Additions were made in 1928 (several rooms including what is now the Altar Guild Sacristy), 1938 (the western wing), 1956 (the northern wing), and 1962 (the southwestern addition, what is now the music wing).

 

Parishioners began giving beautiful and useful gifts to adorn the church before constructed on the building was completed. The brass processional cross, still in use every Sunday today, was given by Mr. Charles Ober and used for the first service in 1907. The marble baptismal font was given in memory of Mrs. Elizabeth Valk, whose home was the site of the earliest Episcopal services in Roland Park, by the St. David’s Sunday School, and was first used on March 30, 1907. The Kirk silver pitcher we use for baptisms was given to St. David’s by the Warfield family, whose most famous member is the Duchess of Windsor. The beautiful stained-glass window in the Library was originally in an Episcopal church in Baltimore County; that church closed, and the donors had it removed and installed at St. David’s.

 

Many of the gifts reveal the family connections between many early St. David’s parishioners. The altar and matching altar rail of imported Brescia Purple marble were given by Mrs. Eleanor Brannan in memory of her daughter, whose husband was a member of the first vestry; his cousin Margaret Ould Swindell gave the brass altar gates in memory of her father. Mr. Charles Dickey, who was so instrumental in acquiring the property, purchased the stained-glass windows and gave them to the parish without dedications, generously requesting that other parishioners be able to dedicate them as another source of funds for the new parish. The chalice and the ciborium we use on Sunday mornings were given by Mr. Dickey’s sister-in-law in honor of his brother and sister.

 

The tradition of excellent sacred music dates from the earliest days of the parish. In 1908, an Estey organ was purchased secondhand for $8000, a significant amount considering that the cost of building the church was $35,000. Within a few months, the church organist had assembled a 32-voice choir of men and boys, later complemented by a choir of girls until the choir was finally integrated in the late 20th century. The Estey organ served the parish until 1965, when a new organ by Casavant Frères was purchased and installed. This parish has a deep love for traditional church music, and the organ and one of the city’s finest church choirs are a very important part of our main Sunday morning service. In March of 1968, a “Folk Mass” was introduced on Sunday mornings, but the response was at best mixed; the church history records that it was largely the desire of an assistant rector and “was seldom resurrected after his departure.”

 

When St. David’s celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1956, as a token of our bonds of affection, St. David’s Cathedral in Wales sent to the parish a stone, installed in the wall underneath the St. David’s window, from its 12th century building. The parish marked the anniversary with the creation of the Fiftieth Anniversary Fund, a revolving fund used to make loans to other congregations in the diocese for the purpose of church planting and building. In the 21st century, the purpose of the fund was altered to include making grants to non-profit organizations helping people in need, particularly those in the city of Baltimore or connected to The Episcopal Church here and elsewhere.

 

St. David’s Day School was founded by parishioner Dorathea Smith in 1957. The Columbarium was built in the Memorial Courtyard and Garden in 1973. For the one hundredth anniversary of St. David’s in 2006, the parish undertook a renovation of our buildings, temporarily returning to worship at the old St. Mary’s building in Hampden, where so many early St. David’s parishioners had worshipped before our parish was founded.    

 

Fortunately, Roland Park has come a long way from its earliest days, when it was designed as an upper-class streetcar suburb that advertised itself as “restricted” to exclude people of color and Jews. As the neighborhood has become more diverse, so has the St. David’s congregation, and increasingly we have members who come to us from all over the city of Baltimore. We continue to be intentional about recognizing the pleasant and unpleasant parts of our history and working to be a congregation that welcomes all people. We are also developing relationships with Episcopal congregations in other neighborhoods of the city, to support each other and collaborate on outreach projects in our city.