Portsmouth Market Square North Church
— — the white steeple the harbour points at.
Not only on a wall.
“Market Square is the centre of Portsmouth, and North Church is the white steeple every street in the old quarter bends toward. The congregation has been here since 1671. The current Greek Revival building, finished in 1855, has carried the same brass clock in its tower for more than a century. The Piscataqua River runs past three blocks east, salt and fast. The brick warms slowly through the afternoon.
Portsmouth Market Square North Church, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Portsmouth sits on the south bank of the Piscataqua River, where the river meets the Atlantic on New Hampshire's short eighteen-mile coastline. It is one of the oldest cities in the United States, settled in 1623, and was the colonial capital. Market Square is the historic centre, a small triangle where Congress, Pleasant, and Daniel Streets converge. North Church anchors the square, and the brick blocks around it hold bookshops, restaurants, the Athenaeum, and the Music Hall. The Strawbery Banke Museum sits a few blocks south on Marcy Street.
The North Church congregation dates to 1671. The present building, the third on the site, was completed in 1855 in Greek Revival style with a slender white steeple rising about 200 feet above Market Square. The Paul Revere bell that hung in the previous meetinghouse was lost in a fire; the current bell was cast in 1856 by Henry N. Hooper of Boston. The clock in the tower has marked Portsmouth time for more than a century and a half and is visible from most of the old waterfront.
Market Square is closed to through traffic on summer weekends and is walkable from any of the downtown lots. The Athenaeum, a private library founded in 1817, faces the square and admits visitors during posted hours. The Music Hall on Chestnut Street, dating to 1878, programs concerts and films year-round. Strawbery Banke Museum on Marcy Street preserves ten acres of colonial-era houses. Prescott Park sits on the river, and the Memorial Bridge to Kittery, Maine is a fifteen-minute walk north.