Christ Church

Christ Church is a parish church in Mount Pellon, built in 1853-54 by the Bradford architects Mallinson & Healey, with James Mallinson as the probable lead architect. The contractor was B. Walton & Sons, and the building cost £1360, supplemented by a £125 grant from the Church Commissioners. Later additions include a north aisle, north-west porch, organ chamber, and chapel, none of which appear on the original plan.

The church is constructed of coursed dressed sandstone with freestone dressings and a slate roof. It is a large parish church designed in a free Decorated style, with an asymmetrical plan comprising an aisled nave, south-west tower, north-west porch, chancel with south organ chamber and north chapel and vestry.

The prominent three-stage tower features angle buttresses and an embattled parapet. The lower stage serves as a porch, with a continuous double chamfer to the south doorway and a single-light west window with quatrefoil tracery. The middle stage contains ogee-headed windows below clock faces in the south and west walls, and two 2-light belfry openings. The south aisle has four 3-light square-headed windows, and the nave features a 4-light west window. The later north aisle stands under a separate roof and has a 3-light west window with reticulated tracery above a porch with segmental-pointed south doorway and ogee-headed west window. The porch roof is concealed behind a parapet, with an added boiler room on the north side. The buttressed five-bay north wall of the aisle contains 2-light windows. The chancel east window displays reticulated tracery. The north chancel aisle incorporates a basement vestry made possible by the falling ground level. The chapel in the main storey has triple cusped east windows and two trefoil north windows. The south organ chamber sits under an outshut roof with an east rose window and trefoil-headed south windows; a low extension on its east side serves as a store room.

Internally, the nave arcades have piers of quatrefoil section with fillets and double-chamfered arches. The north arcade comprises five bays, while the south side has only four bays due to the tower. The chancel arch follows a similar design with filleted responds. The nave, aisles, and north chapel all feature five-bay and three-bay arched brace roofs respectively, while the chancel has a similar three-bay roof with cusped arched braces. Walls are plastered, with raised floorboards below pews. The sanctuary features a mosaic floor.

The church contains significant fixtures including an octagonal font with a single-piece carved bowl and stem ornamented with trefoils in panels, benches with moulded numbered ends, and a polygonal wooden pulpit with open Gothic panels on a stone base. Choir stalls feature tracery-decorated ends and quatrefoil blind panels with open arcaded frontals. The screen from the north aisle to the chapel is a First World War memorial dating to 1914-18, featuring simple tracery lights over a panelled dado. The chancel communion rail has panelled balusters with ogee brackets and incorporating arches, dating to the late 19th or early 20th century, while the chapel communion rail of open arcading is in mid-19th century style and may originally have occupied the chancel. The sanctuary reredos comprises Gothic panelling with an empty central niche, and the dado in the north and south sanctuary walls follows a similar treatment. The church retains late 19th and early 20th century stained-glass windows, including a west window of approximately 1911 depicting martyrs, Apostles, and Old Testament figures.

The graveyard contains a dense collection of well-carved 19th century headstones and several grander Gothic memorials, particularly on the west side. The church was re-ordered in 1999 when a first floor was added to the north aisle.