Ivy Chapel Union Church
Bedford County, VA
1880-c.1950
Ivy Chapel Union Church was built in 1880 on Coffee Road in Bedford County, Virginia. The chapel was named for nearby Ivy Creek. It was known as a “union church” because it served as a house of worship for Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian congregations simultaneously.

Throughout its history Ivy Chapel was most closely associated with the Episcopal faith. Area Baptists established their own church—North Bedford Baptist—in 1893. The Methodists left Ivy Chapel in 1935. Episcopalians, however, held services there periodically through the mid-twentieth century. The opalescent glass window behind the chapel’s altar was given by the Episcopal congregation in memory of Rev. Frederick LeMosy, a young minister who served Ivy Chapel until his untimely death in 1900.

The nearby North Bedford Baptist Church received legal ownership of Ivy Chapel in 1979. A year later North Bedford renovated the old chapel to celebrate its centenary. Today North Bedford still cares for Ivy Chapel and the small graveyard located behind it. The Old City Cemetery’s Bicentennial Chapel was modeled after Ivy Chapel Union Church.