Curious Places of Worship

The hallowed halls of great basilicas, temples, cathedrals, and monasteries are universally admired and respected. But not all places of worship are as traditional as that, and some traditional places of worship have some truly strange histories.

Hanging temples, religious relics, bizarre shrines full of dolls, trees that looks like Jesus, modern day pyramid cults, all and much more qualify as Curious Places of Worship.

Image of Stonehenge World Heritage Site located in Stonehenge, United Kingdom | Stones and Henge, respectively.
Stonehenge, United Kingdom

Stonehenge World Heritage Site

Famously Misunderstood Wonder of the Ancient World.

Much can, and has been said about this amazing monument. Instead of regurgitating what has been posted everywhere, here are a few small goodies that will make your visit a bit richer: The... »

Cultures and Civilizations , Lost Tribes, Architectural Oddities, Curious Places of Worship, Incredible Ruins | Edited by dougygyro and Annetta

Image of "The Witches of Eastwick" Filming Sites | Milton Academy, Milton, MA

"The Witches of Eastwick" Filming Sites

Based on the John Updike novel of the same name, the 1987 film The Witches of Eastwick tells the story of three lonely women who conjure the devil and then give him hell. The movie was filmed... »

Curious Places of Worship | Edited by JWOcker

Image of Site of the Bamiyan Buddhas located in Bamian, Afghanistan | The hollow rock niche that once held the Great Buddha
Bamian, Afghanistan

Site of the Bamiyan Buddhas

Once an impressive link to Afghanistan’s Buddhist past, now a sad reminder of intolerance towards other cultures

Few man-made destructions of cultural heritage have been blatant as the bombing of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban in 2001. Prior to the destruction, the Giant Buddhas had already been worn... »

Lost Tribes, Curious Places of Worship, Incredible Ruins, Giant Buddhas | Edited by Tawsam and Rachel

Image of Tremont Temple located in Boston, Massachusetts, US | Tremont Temple
Boston, Massachusetts, US

Tremont Temple

The site where Charles Dickens gave his first public reading of "A Christmas Carol" in the U.S.

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is exactly the kind of story you’d like to be told out loud, and the author did exactly that across Europe and America. The first time he read it in public in... »

Architectural Oddities, Curious Places of Worship | Edited by JWOcker and Rachel

Image of Stupa of Takht-e Rostam located in Takht-e Rostman, Afghanistan | View of the stupa and the old plank bridge to the Harmika building
Takht-e Rostman, Afghanistan

Stupa of Takht-e Rostam

Highly unusual subterranean stupa and adjacent cave monastery

There are places in the world so strongly devoted to a particular religion that it is incredibly hard to believe that they have been shaped by any other faith. Afghanistan is one of those places,... »

Unusual Monuments, Cultures and Civilizations , Lost Tribes, Architectural Oddities, Curious Places of Worship, Incredible Ruins, Subterranean Sites | Edited by Tawsam and Rachel

Image of Aleister Crowley ‘s Thelema Abbey located in Santa Barbara, Italy | All photos under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License by Luigi Santos-Hammarlund
Santa Barbara, Italy

Aleister Crowley ‘s Thelema Abbey

Where Aleister Crowley taught magik in "La Chambre Des Cauchemars" his "chamber of nightmares."

In 1919 , Aleister Crowley  -  a mystic and occultist known as "The Great Beast - had a revelation: he and his followers had to create a sanctuary, a holy place that would enable them to live... »

Architectural Oddities, Curious Places of Worship, Eccentric Homes, Incredible Ruins | Edited by Dylan and Laetitia

Image of Ellora Caves located in Aurangabad, India | Kailash Temple, a Hindu Dravidian monument built between 756-774 CE in the likeness of Mount Kailash, the home of Shiva
Aurangabad, India

Ellora Caves

This complex of vertically-excavated Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu monolithic temples in India's Maharashtra providence illustrates a spirit of tolerance characteristic of ancient India.

Religious devotion was not uncommon in ancient times, but tolerance was often much harder to come by. Happily, for curious travelers and religious devotees alike, the caves at Ellora offer a truly... »

Architectural Oddities, Curious Places of Worship, Incredible Ruins, Subterranean Sites | Edited by capvt, Mark_Casey and 2 others

Image of St. Mary's Aldermanbury located in Fulton, Missouri, US
Fulton, Missouri, US

St. Mary's Aldermanbury

Small church is moved and reassembled over 4,000 miles away in what the London Times called "perhaps the biggest jigsaw puzzle in the history of architecture,"

If you were searching for a church that was built in London some time before 1181, only to be rebuilt after the Great Fire of London, it seems safe to assume that the first place you'd look would... »

Architectural Oddities, Curious Places of Worship | Edited by Tre and Annetta

Image of Darth Vader Grotesque located in Washington, Washington, D.C., US | The National Cathedral is famous for its neogothic architecture
Washington, Washington, D.C., US

Darth Vader Grotesque

The sci-fi villain is a little known inhabitant of the Washington National Cathedral

Cathedrals are well known as places of quiet reflection and reverence for divinity. To encourage these behaviors, architects often use calm, echoless corridors, vaulted ceilings arching toward the... »

Architectural Oddities, Curious Places of Worship, Outsider Architecture | Edited by Mark_Casey, Rachel and others

Image of The Ancient Chapel of Toxteth located in Liverpool, United Kingdom | Tombs in the graveyard of the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth
Liverpool, United Kingdom

The Ancient Chapel of Toxteth

17th century puritan church with connections to the Salem Witch Trials

In 1618 the local Puritan community erected the Toxteth Unitarian Chapel on the corner of today’s Park Road and Dingle Lane. Since the 1830s it has been known as The Ancient Chapel of Toxteth.... »

Architectural Oddities, Curious Places of Worship | Edited by johnreppion, Dylan and others