An Elegant Church in Rural Tennessee

Long Rock Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1886, is a one-story brick rural church in Carroll County, Tennessee, set among cedar trees and three historic cemeteries. The gable-front building features segmental-arched windows, a paneled double-leaf entrance, and interior finishes that include tongue-and-groove poplar ceilings, paneled wainscoting, and handmade pews crafted by congregants. A 1957 concrete-block classroom wing extends from the rear. The church served as a community center for the Long Rock settlement, hosting services, revivals, homecomings, school gatherings, and the region's well-known Do-Re-Mi (shape-note) singing schools led by Casual Hampton Presson and later his son Gilman. The property also includes a historic privy, an early-20th-century bell, and cemeteries dating from 1822 onward. Long Rock School is just north of the church on the opposite side of Long Rock Church Road. Cemetery No 1, the oldest, is located about 0.2 miles north on Long Rock Church Road. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the church is an elegant surviving example of 19th-century rural Methodist architecture in western Tennessee. - AsNotedIn