Christ Church Baptist Church

Christ Church Baptist Church, built in 1864-65 by James Cranston of Oxford, features an eccentric Venetian Gothic design made of polychromatic brick with stone dressings and a patterned slate roof. It occupies an important corner site, prominently displaying its steeple. The steeple is connected to the main body of the church by a single lower bay that includes an entrance with a row of five lights above it. In the angle between this bay and the church body is a canted sided bay with a narrower entrance. The steeple has large two-light bell openings and an octagonal stone spire that rises between tabernacles at the corners. The church body is divided into seven bays, six of which feature coupled lancet-type windows below and large single-light windows with octofoils above, separated by buttresses. The seventh bay projects as a transept. To the right, there are staggered gabled bays, one of which is the hall added in 1888 by J C Dunn and J F Hopkiss. The interior is lofty with clerestory lighting, featuring a large hall with cast iron shafts that rise to the roof and support galleries. The east end has a shallow apse with a glazed semi-dome, and the desk and choir stalls with the organ are raised on a podium above the immersion font.