Christ Church

Christ Church is a church built between 1839 and 1840, designed by E. Sharpe. It is constructed of stone with smooth ashlar dressings and a slate roof. The church comprises a 6-bay nave with aisles, a west tower, transepts, a chancel with a south-facing organ loft, and a north-facing lean-to vestry. The exterior features sill courses, top cornices, and parapets with roll-moulded coping. The aisles have shallow gabled and set-back buttresses, and the windows feature paired lancets with hood moulds and plain stops. The clerestory has flat buttresses and stepped triple lancets. Gabled porches flank the main entrance; the south porch has a moulded arch and paired 2-panel doors, while the north porch is distinguished by diagonal buttresses. The tower has gabled setback buttresses, two string courses, and paired and single lancets, with louvred stepped triple lancets as bell openings, topped by a corbelled parapet and four pinnacles. The transepts consist of two gabled bays with angle buttresses and 2-light windows with Geometrical tracery and head stops. The chancel’s east side has five stepped lancets, weathered angle buttresses, and a cornice. The vestry features a segmental-pointed entrance head.

Inside, the nave arcades employ monolithic quatrefoil piers. The roof is supported by fishbone trusses. A west gallery, resting on two cast iron columns, features trefoil arcading and a staircase with braced balusters; a porch is located beneath the gallery. Two windows, designed by Morris and Co. in 1872 and 1895 with grisaille quarries and figures above square scenes, are also present. A 2-bay arcade connects to the transepts, with the south side serving as a chapel. A 20th-century altar and reredos incorporate a 15th-century Spanish altar piece, displaying three panels with gilded dropped tracery heads and pinnacles, depicting Christ before Pilate, the Deposition with Symbols of Passion, and a Pietà. A font, originally from Bolton Parish Church and dating from 1845, is octagonal, with an ogee-arched base and tracery and shields to the bowl; the base of the bowl includes a black-letter inscription. A chancel arch sits on corbelled shafts, and the reredos has arched mosaic panels, with the altar moved forward. Stained glass from 1858, in an early Gothic Revival style with much blue glass, illustrates scenes from the Life of Christ.