The church and its grounds are an oasis of green in the midst of the urban landscape. Nestled between the bustling Norfolk city municipal complex and the MacArthur Center shopping mall, the St. Paul’s churchyard offers a pleasant place for a lunchtime picnic, a shady spot to read a book or just to be left alone in quiet contemplation. (Well, quiet is a relative term since traffic noisily whizzes by just outside the churchyard wall.)

Built in 1739, St. Paul’s is one of Hampton Roads’ best known tourist attractions because of the cannonball lodged in its southwest wall. The cannonball, fired by Lord Dunmore during the British siege that lay Norfolk to waste, is actually held in place by concrete these days, but it is cemented into the spot where it originally struck. The church also has an original Tiffany stained glass window, colonial pews with locking doors, a graveyard with tombstones dating back to the colonial era, and a museum featuring the chair in which John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence. The churchyard wall marked the original city limits of Norfolk.

But St. Paul’s is more than a museum. It’s an active Episcopal parish, drawing members from all over Hampton Roads. In recent years it has hosted outdoor music festivals, indoor concerts and annual speaker series, as well as reaching out to the mixture of communities that surround it. The parking lot is full on Sunday mornings. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church continues to serve as a literal and spiritual link between Norfolk’s past, present and future.