Christ Church

Christ Church is an Anglican church built in 1883-5 on Summerfield Crescent in Edgbaston, designed by Julius Alfred Chatwin (1830-1907), the foremost church architect in Birmingham of that period. The building is constructed from squared and coursed stone with stone dressings, under slate roofs, and all windows have plain diamond-paned glass.

The church is oriented north-east to south-west, with a near-symmetrical plan comprising a west porch, north-west vestry, nave, north and south aisles, shallow north and south transepts, and a polygonal apse at the east end. The building consists of six bays set on a moulded stone plinth. Two-stage angle buttresses occupy all corners, with similar buttresses and gabled copings expressing the bay structure along the long elevations. The west end features a large Perpendicular window positioned above paired entrance doorways, crowned by a wheel window. The double-doors in each doorway are plank doors with elaborate wrought-iron strap hinges across much of their surface.

The long elevations have shallow pitched roofs to the aisles with crenellated parapets. Very large aisle windows display rectilinear Perpendicular tracery with cusped decoration to the lower portions. The north and south transepts are gabled with solid parapets and three-light mullioned windows below high Perpendicular windows. The chancel is set slightly below the roofline of the nave and terminates in a five-sided polygonal apse, each side containing windows similar to those in the transepts.

The interior is accessed via the west doorway, which leads into a porch with an inserted glazed storm porch. Paired doorways under stone arches with drip moulds open into the church body. Stone dressings are combined with plastered and painted walls. A west gallery sits above the porch, with an informal open area at the west end now partly containing kitchen fittings. This area is divided from the nave and south aisle by a half-glazed timber screen with pointed-arched glazed openings and floral carving to the resulting spandrels.

The nave arcades feature moulded, pointed stone arches carried on octagonal stone piers. The piers have carved foliate and floral capitals including ferns, daffodils, lilies of the valley, ears of wheat and grapevines. The roof is a simple timber barrel vault, and floors are tiled in black and red geometric patterns. The pulpit and font are positioned to the north and south of the foot of the chancel arch respectively.

The octagonal stone pulpit is elaborately carved with pierced arcades and figures of saints under canopies. It bears an inscription to Reverend George Lea, in whose memory the church was built. The font, also octagonal, has carved relief decoration in quatrefoils to each face with an inscription below. The south chancel houses the organ. The high chancel is apsidal in plan with three high, traceried windows. Below these is an altar back created from a tripartite blind arcade of pointed arches with cusping, moulding and crocketing, and cross finials, each face decorated with texts. The altar rails are of hardwood, pierced with cusped decoration. Choir stalls, gallery front and pews are also of hardwood.

The area underwent massive suburban expansion during the second half of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Industrial development along railways and canals was followed by suburban housing for the middle and skilled working classes. Christ Church was constructed at the corner of newly-created Summerfield Crescent and Gillott Road to serve the growing population. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1890 shows rows of semi-detached houses under construction approaching the church; by the 1904 survey, the entire area had been fully developed in this way.

The parish was created from the parish of St John, Ladywood. Reverend George Lea, Perpetual Curate of the Church of St George, Edgbaston from 1864-83, was commemorated by the church's endowment. It was consecrated in 1885. The building has undergone almost no alteration since this date, apart from the addition of carved decoration internally and some modest reordering to create informal space at the west end.