Christ Church

Christ Church

A parish church with tower, meeting rooms and hall, designed by Alfred H Gardner in 1953 and built between 1956 and 1958.

The building is principally constructed from brown and orange brick. The church is distinguished by its full-height glazing beneath a lightweight shell roof. The hall features concrete panels and black vitrolite.

The church has a roughly rectangular footprint orientated on an east-west axis, comprising a three-bay nave with aisles of equal width and a short projecting sanctuary to the west. The church hall is perpendicular to the church, also roughly rectangular and orientated north-south, consisting of a hall and a parallel two-storey range containing meeting rooms. A rectangular plan tower links the south-east corner of the church with the north end of the centre.

The exterior is a modular composition of a squat brick tower, the body of the church in which the three equal bays of the nave and aisles are expressed with full-height windows beneath shallow concrete vaults, and a hall and meeting rooms within a two-storey flat-roofed block. The tower features a header pattern within the brickwork and contrasting chequerboard detailing to the belfry. The main entrance to the church is at the base of the tower, featuring double doors beneath a porch with restrained Ionic columns and a copper pyramidal roof topped by a sculpture of Christ the Sower by John Skelton. The three bays of the nave feature full-height glazing divided into square panes, each inset with two square dalle de verre panels. Each bay is set beneath a vaulted roof supported by slender external columns. The nave and sanctuary are lit from tall side windows. The liturgical east end is blind with an image of the cross in contrasting brickwork. The road-facing elevation of the church hall features six glazed bays with square panes separated by black vitrolite panels. The floor level of each storey is indicated by courses of large concrete panels. The brick outer bays contain square windows with concrete dressings to ground and first floor, with smaller rows of windows to the side elevations.

The main entrance to the tower opens into a lobby with contrasting floor tiles arranged in chequerboard formation, containing a staircase with concrete treads and a slender metal handrail. The lobby opens into the nave of the church through glazed and panelled doors. The nave and aisles are of equal width beneath a vaulted ceiling made from fibrous plaster decorated with chequered relief and supported on slender purple columns. Timber pews face the sanctuary in four rows and form a unified ensemble with the choir stalls, kneelers, alter table, pulpit and organ console. The floor features marbled tiles laid in a square pattern. The interior walls are of exposed brick while the chequered motif is repeated using timber panels and purple acoustic tiles.

The sanctuary is at the liturgical east end of the church and incorporates a timber cross and carved figures by John Skelton set into a chequerboard reredos. To the left of the sanctuary is the organ, which features timber panels with square openings to the organ pipes. To the right of the sanctuary is a raised timber pulpit featuring a panelled base containing further carved figures by Skelton below a circular sounding board with chequered motif. The rear wall features diagonally-set purple tiles inset with stylised gold stars. Each glazed bay features two square panels of thick stained glass, 22 in total, set in concrete and illustrating the life of Christ, by Pierre Fourmaintraux. A small font in polished stone or concrete sits at the liturgical west end. The light fittings are in the form of unglazed lanterns, some containing suspended celestial figures, likely also by Skelton.

The church hall has a sprung floor and a lamella truss roof. It features full-height brick piers between bays of glazing at ground floor level, with square clerestory lights above. At the south end of the hall is a stage featuring slender fluted columns and an angled chequerboard shell of contrasting timber panels.