St. George’s Episcopal Church was constructed in 1849. It was the third church building erected on a lot originally designated for a church on a plat of Fredericksburg that the House of Burgesses approved in 1727. With its tall steeple clock that has operated consistently since 1851, St. George’s Episcopal Church, located next to city government buildings and the historic market square, is a landmark building at the center of town. An important example of Romanesque Revival style in the Fredericksburg Historic District, the church is also the only Romanesque building in Virginia designed by renowned Baltimore architect Robert Cary Long, Jr. During the Civil War, after the First Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862 and the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864, St. George’s Episcopal Church functioned as a hospital. St. George’s Episcopal Church is also significant for its importance as a location for some of the city’s earliest (1816) public education through its Sunday school program.