Long a culturally diverse city, Charleston gave refuge to persecuted French Protestants, Baptists and Jews over the years and earned the nickname the 'Holy City' for its abundance of houses of worship. The Gateway Walk, a little-known garden path between Archdale St and Philadelphia Alley, connects four of the city's most beautiful historic churches: the white-columned St John's Lutheran Church ; the Gothic Revival Unitarian Church ; the striking Romanesque Circular Congregational Church , originally founded in 1681; and St Philip's Church , with its picturesque steeple and 17th-century graveyard, parts of which were once reserved for 'strangers and transient white persons.'
