Visiting the SEBTS campus: a walker’s guide to the original Wake Forest College grounds

The prettiest walk in Wake Forest runs through a campus most residents have never actually entered. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary occupies the original Wake Forest College grounds at the north end of downtown, magnolias, stone wall, arch and all, and the grounds welcome respectful visitors. Walking it is the closest thing this state offers to time travel: the quad where 122 years of college life happened, preserved by the institution that inherited it. Here's how to do the walk, what you're looking at, and the etiquette that keeps the welcome open.

What this place is

The short history, for orientation: Wake Forest College operated here from its 1834 founding in a plantation farmhouse until May 1956, when Reynolds Foundation money moved it to Winston-Salem, a saga our town-versus-university explainer tells in full. The Southern Baptist Convention bought the campus for $1.6 million, and Southeastern, which had been sharing the grounds with the departing college, took full possession that year. It has been a working seminary ever since, which is the essential thing to hold in mind on a visit: this is a living campus with students, classes and worship, not a museum, and visitors are guests of an institution generous enough to leave the gates open.

The landmarks of the walk

The campus tour organizes itself around a handful of features, the same ones the Historical Museum's own virtual tour highlights:

• The stone wall and the arch: the low rock wall bounding the campus and its famous arched gateway are the signature images of old Wake Forest College, the frames through which generations of students entered, and the photographs alumni still travel back for.
• Binkley Chapel: the chapel at the heart of campus, named for the seminary's second president, is where Wake Forest College held its final, tearful 1956 commencement, the moving vans idling outside. Its spire is the one visible from the high point of Joyner Park's Field & Garden Loop, a mile of town away.
• Stealey Hall: the building named for Southeastern's first president stands on the very spot where Calvin Jones's farmhouse, the college's birthplace, originally sat before its rescues and relocations; the house itself now lives three blocks away at the Historical Museum.
• The old campus well, dating to around the turn of the twentieth century, one of the small survivals that make the grounds feel continuous with their college past.
• The magnolia-shaded quad itself, the connective tissue of the whole walk, at its most photogenic in bloom and in low light; the photographer's guide covers timing and courtesy.

The walking route

The natural loop takes 45 unhurried minutes:

• Start at the arch off North Main Street, the ceremonial front door, and enter the way a century of students did.
• Cross the quad under the magnolias toward Binkley Chapel, pausing at Stealey Hall's site-of-the-founding ground.
• Trace the stone wall's perimeter back around, watching for the well and the historic markers, which the self-guided markers tour catalogs.
• Exit toward North Main and let the walk continue into the Historic District, where Faculty Avenue's grand houses show where the professors lived, and on to the museum three blocks away.

Golfers can extend the pilgrimage down the hill the way Arnold Palmer's classmates did, to the still-public Paschal Golf Club, the route and the story in the golfer's guide and the town's larger athletic saga in when the champions lived here.

When to walk it

The campus rewards timing. Early spring, when the magnolias and the ornamentals wake up, is the postcard season and the reason wedding photographers circle these grounds; October gives the quad its second great month. Summer walks belong to the morning, before the heat and after the light. Academic rhythms matter too: semester breaks leave the grounds nearly private, while a weekday class change fills the paths with the seminary's own life, which is its own kind of sight, the campus doing at a smaller scale exactly what it was built for in 1834. Sunday visitors should expect worship and act accordingly. And on the handful of days when town events spill this direction, the walk pairs perfectly with whatever the events calendar has brought to the neighborhood.

Visiting well: the etiquette

• Walk as a guest: daylight hours, quiet voices near buildings, and full deference to classes, services and campus events in progress.
• Buildings are generally the community's, not the visitor's; the walk is an outdoor experience unless an event or the seminary itself invites you in.
• Photography of the grounds is the tradition; photographing students or into windows is not. Wedding and portrait sessions have their own permission channels, covered in the photographer's guide.
• Park respectfully along the town-side streets or downtown and arrive on foot; the parking guide makes it easy, and the campus sits an easy stroll from the downtown loop.

The deeper reward of this walk is perspective. Downtown explains the town's commerce and the railroad guide explains its geometry, but the campus explains its soul: a town that existed to educate, lost its reason for being in a single May morning, and then, instead of fading, built the second act you see everywhere else on this site. The seminary's stewardship is why the first act is still standing to visit. Walk it once and the whole town reads differently afterward, which is the highest thing a forty-five-minute stroll can offer.

Frequently asked questions

Can you visit the SEBTS campus?

Yes, respectful visitors are welcome to walk the grounds during daylight hours. It's a working seminary, so defer to classes and events, keep to the outdoor spaces, and treat the visit as a guest's walk.

Is SEBTS the old Wake Forest University campus?

Yes. Southeastern occupies the original Wake Forest College grounds, purchased when the college moved to Winston-Salem in 1956, with the stone wall, arch and chapel preserved.

What should I see on the old campus?

The arch and stone wall, Binkley Chapel, Stealey Hall standing on the site of the founding farmhouse, the century-old campus well and the magnolia quad, about 45 minutes on foot.

Where is the original Wake Forest College building?

The Calvin Jones House, where the college opened in 1834, was moved three blocks and now anchors the free Wake Forest Historical Museum at 414 N. Main Street.