Christ Church

Christ Church is a church constructed between 1883 and 1884 by W.H. Blessley of Middlesbrough. It is built of brick with sandstone dressings and has a Welsh slate roof. The building is situated on the north side of Eston High Street.

The church is designed in the Early English style, notable for the plate tracery in the west window and chancel. It features a south-west tower over a porch; a clerestoried nave with aisles; and a chancel with transepts and a north-east vestry. Architectural details include angle buttresses, a continuous chamfered plinth, and sill strings.

The four-stage tower has a boarded south door with scrolled iron strap hinges, set within a chamfered surround with nook shafts and a continuous hoodmould. A foundation stone, dated 1883, is located in the right buttress. The second stage features triple windows under a hoodmould, while the third stage has narrow round-headed windows beneath relieving arches. Four grouped bell openings are at the top of the tower, and a half-round stair tower is located at the south-west angle, topped with a shallow pyramidal roof. The nave and aisles have five bays each, featuring paired windows under continuous hoodmoulds. Buttresses are between the aisle bays, and pilaster strips are present in the clerestories, with brick corbelling at the eaves. The west end boasts a tripartite window above grouped lancets, with paired lancets in the gable. A chamfered doorway is found in the west end of the north aisle. The south transept features a tripartite south window above five lancets. The lower chancel, canted at the east end, has five windows under hoodmoulds and a hipped roof. Cross finials adorn the nave and chancel. A lean-to vestry is attached to the building.

Inside, the church showcases four-bay chamfered arcades with round shafts, octagonal bases, and roughly-hewn square capitals, intended for carving. Continuous hoodmoulds are present. Similar arches define the chancel and transepts. The chancel windows have nook shafts. The nave roof is a double-framed coupled-rafter design, boasting arched braces above and below turned collars with turned kingposts, and is ceiled above the braces. The chancel roof mirrors this design, with arched braces and two levels of through purlins. Patterned encaustic tiled floors are throughout. The stained glass includes contemporary depictions of saints in the aisle windows by E.R. Suffling (London), and windows dating circa 1905 by Powell and Sons (Whitefriars) in the chancel. A memorial altar, retable, and chancel panelling, dating circa 1911, are dedicated to John Thompson and are characterized by blind traceried panels, foliate bosses, enriched carved vine on mutins, and brattishing. Squared-headed niches, containing figures of St. Cuthbert and St. Hilda, are set under crocketed canopies with spires at the ends of the retable. Furnishings such as panelled and carved choir benches, clergy stalls, a pulpit, a transept screen, and a screen altar and retable in the south chapel were completed between 1942 and 1950 by Thompson (Kilburn). A font of Caen stone and marble, featuring an octagonal bowl on five short columns, a common chamfered base, and two steps, is also a feature. The adjoining parish hall, located on the north transept, is not considered to be of special architectural interest.