Christ Church

ESTON HIGH STREET, NZ 51 NE north side 7/126 (1/1) Christ Church 22.6.67 - II

Church, 1883-84 by W.H. Blessley (Middlesbrough). Brick with sandstone dressings. Welsh slate roofs. South-west tower over porch; clerestoried nave with aisles; chancel with transepts and north-east vestry. Early English style, with plate tracery in west window and chancel. Angle buttresses, continuous chamfered plinth, and sill strings. 4-stage tower has boarded south door, with scrolled iron strap hinges, in chamfered surround with short nook shafts, under continuous hoodmould. Foundation stone, dated 1883 in right buttress. Triple windows under hoodmould in 2nd stage; narrow round-headed windows under relieving arches, in 3rd stage; and 4 grouped bell openings. Half-round stair tower at south-west angle. Shallow pyramidal roof. 5-bay nave and aisles with paired windows under continuous hoodmoulds. Buttresses between aisle bays; pilaster strips in clerestoreys with brick corbelling at eaves. Tripartite west window above grouped lancets; paired lancets in gable. Chamfered doorway in west end of north aisle. South transept has tripartite south window above 5 lancets. Lower chancel, canted at east end, has 5 windows under hoodmoulds; hipped roof. Cross finials on nave and chancel. Lean-to vestry.

INTERIOR: 4-bay chamfered arcades with round shafts, octagonal bases and roughly-hewn square capitals (intended for carving). Continuous hoodmoulds. Similar chancel and trancept arches. Chancel windows have nook shafts. Double-framed coupled-rafter nave roof, with arched braces above and below turned collars with turned kingposts; ceiled above braces. Similar chancel roof with arched braces and 2 levels of through purlins. Patterned encaustic tiled floors. Stained glass: contemporary by E.R. Suffling (London), depicting saints, in aisle windows; c.1905 by Powell and Sons (Whitefriars) in chancel. Memorial altar, retable and chancel panelling c.1911 to John Thompson, with blind traceried panels, foliate bosses and enriched carved vine on mutins, and brattishing. Squared-headed niches, holding figures of St. Cuthbert and St. Hilda, under crocketed canopies with spires, at ends of retable. Panelled and carved choir benches, clergy stalls, pulpit, transept screen, and screen altar and retable in south chapel, 1942-50 by Thompson (Kilburn). Font of Caen stone and marble with octagonal bowl on 5 short columns, common chamfered base and 2 steps. Parish hall adjoining north transept is not of special interest.

Listing NGR: NZ5533118620