{"nrhp_refnum":"66000140","name":"Christ Church","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Garden St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Cambridge","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.37535357650003,"lon":-71.12057080832972,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1966-10-15","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1960-10-09","areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Christ Church is a colonial Anglican (Episcopal) church on Garden Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, built of wood between 1757 and 1761 to designs by Peter Harrison.","why_significant":"The nomination presents the church as a work of Peter Harrison, described as colonial America's most skilled gentleman-amateur architect. Its plain planked exterior contrasts with a refined interior, and it is one of the surviving landmarks of colonial Cambridge Common.","narrative":"Christ Church is a wooden Anglican church on Garden Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, constructed between 1757 and 1761 from designs by Peter Harrison of Newport. A group of wealthy Cambridge merchants funded it with a strict budget of 500 pounds sterling, requiring a wooden building with one tier of windows, no galleries except an organ loft, and a tower with a belfry instead of a steeple. The actual cost came closer to 1,300 pounds, which likely explains why the exterior was never roughcast. The exterior has wide horizontal planking, a square tower and seven arched side windows. Inside, Ionic columns and pilasters, added in the 1820s under architect Isaiah Rogers, give a spacious, delicate character. The congregation, largely loyalist, dispersed during the Revolution, and troops used the church in 1775. The building was later lengthened from sixty to eighty-three feet, redecorated, and restored in the twentieth century. It is valued as an example of Harrison's design skill and as a surviving piece of colonial Cambridge.","period_of_significance":"1757-61","architect_builder":"Peter Harrison","architectural_style":"Colonial; early Georgian","criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied and in religious use; the form says serious construction problems from the 1853 enlargement were being corrected. Later additions are noted as not contributing to the landmark's significance.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 01:58:40.529112-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/37/7937/63793737/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/66000140_NHL.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/66000140/f1d2119617-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/66000140/f1d2119617-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"User:Magicpiano","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CambridgeMA_ChristChurch.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">User:Magicpiano</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CambridgeMA_ChristChurch.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"73000281","name":"Cambridge Common Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/massachusetts/cambridge-common-historic-district-73000281/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63793737","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Church_(Cambridge,_Massachusetts)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5108740"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/christ-church-66000140/"}