Christ Church

Christ Church is an Anglican church dating from 1866 to 1900, designed by John Douglas. It is constructed of orange Ruabon brick with sandstone dressings, and has grey-green slate roofs. The architectural style is primarily free Early English, incorporating elements of the Decorated and Perpendicular styles.

The church’s plan includes an aisled nave, a chancel, a baptistry, a chapel, and vestries; the intended south-west steeple was never built. The nave is built of brick with a stone-dressed facade, featuring a geometrical west window flanked by paired lights and a broader central light. A south-west porch with an oak door and lancet window is present, alongside a south aisle with three bays of paired lancet windows. Rainwater pipes and heads dated 1897 are visible. A cantilevered timber-framed hip-roofed bellcote sits atop the main porch. The clerestory has six pairs of lancet windows. The apsidal chapel south of the chancel has small lancets in the west gable and rectangular windows to the south, with a three-light window reminiscent of the 15th century at the east end. The stone chancel features a lancet window and an east window of three lancets, all within a recessed arch. Organ chambers and vestries are attached to the north face of the chancel, which also displays a diminishing stone chimney and a timber-framed shingle dormer. The north vestry has two lancets, and a further vestry is built parallel to the chancel roof. The north aisle of the nave has a small door and three bays of paired lancets, with a clerestory containing nine pairs of lancets. The baptistry, located off the west bay, has a stepped roof and a north window with panel tracery. All gables are finished with stone copings and crosses as apex finials, while the nave roof originally had five lucarnes on each slope, now blocked.

Inside, the five-bay nave has a chamfered arcade without capitals, supported by corbelled shafts which carry queen post trusses with cusped braces. It features a wood-block floor, a boarded ceiling, and detailed aisle roofs. The baptistry contains a font, and the chancel arch is supported by shafts on angel corbels, leading to a wagon roof. The church includes a pedestal pulpit, a 1920 reredos by Sir Charles Nicholson, and reredos and fittings from around 1900-1910, also by Nicholson. A chapel reredos by Kempe dates from 1897. The organ and its case are decorated with panels painted in a Pre-Raphaelite style. Various windows were designed by Kempe (south aisle, 1901; west window, 1902), AK Nicholson (baptistry, 1906), and Bryams (north aisle window, 1906). The church has stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops.