Following damage during the American Civil War the church was re-modeled with 19th-century interior furnishings. A century later the sanctuary was again in need of renovation and it was restored to its probable 18th-century appearance. Recreation of the furnishings was patterned after five extant Tidewater area churches, with expert documentation. The initial restoration of the church was completed in the mid-1970s. In 1974 a Tetragrammaton, originally erected as a decorative motif in the old St Mary Abbots church in London, England in 1696, was given to Merchants Hope under the condition that it be restored. This early Judeo-Christian symbol for Jehovah now hangs above the altar, the only one of its kind in North America.