Look along South Fairfax Street and you'll find the plain-style facade of the Old Presbyterian Meeting House rising quietly at number 321. This Christian church is part of the National Capital Presbytery and the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and its heritage reaches back to the early eighteenth century. Scottish Presbyterians among the early European settlers helped establish Alexandria as a port in 1749; a Society of Presbyterians worshiped publicly here from the 1760s, and the congregation’s first installed minister arrived in 1772.
The meeting house itself was erected in 1775 in an Early Republic style. Largely destroyed by fire in 1835, it was rebuilt in 1836, intentionally retaining a Reformed Protestant plain-style appearance. You can clearly see features added after that rebuilding: the bell tower raised in 1843 and the granite entrance stairs installed in 1853.
The campus was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001, and the building lies within the bounds of the Alexandria Historic District. Follow the bell tower down to the granite stairs added in 1853, then out to the Old Town streets they still open onto.