Christchurch

Christchurch is a parish church dating from 1903-4, designed by C Ford Whitcombe and built on a new site. The building is constructed of sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings and tiled roofs. It comprises a two-bay chancel, a four-bay nave and a south aisle passage, a south porch that intersects with the west tower and incorporates the base of the tower's stair turret, and a stair turret to the south-east. The church is in the Decorated style, with influences of the Arts and Crafts movement evident in the fittings.

The chancel has sloping corner buttresses, a three-light east window with cusped lancets, the hood moulds of which return and continue as a string course, and an arched doorway in the north elevation. The nave features sloping buttresses at corners and bay divisions, with a slit window in the angles with the chancel; otherwise, flat-headed openings and cusped lancets are present, topped by a parapet with moulded coping between the nave and south aisle roofs. The gabled south porch has an ogee-arched doorway, the hood mould returning to form a string course, wrought-iron gates, and a sundial carved above the doorway, all set beneath a parapet with moulded coping.

The west tower has three stages, each separated by a string course, with corner buttresses and tiled offsets. The lower stage of the north elevation features paired two-light flat-headed windows with cusped lancets to both the north and south elevations, sat beneath a lower string. An arched doorway is flanked by flat-headed cusped lancets beneath the string; a wrought iron clock face is on the second stage elevations. The bell-chamber stage has ogee-arched two-light openings with hood moulds that return and rise as half columns to the parapet string, terminating in foliated capitals. Further detailing includes a traceried parapet, crocketted corner finials, corner gargoyles, a pyramidal roof, and a ship weathervane. The stair tower has slit windows, a string course, a gargoyle, and a parapet with moulded coping.

Inside, the chancel arch has responds of three grouped shafts. The arcade has octagonal piers, with a compound pier at the upper end. The interior includes wagon roofs, an octagonal font, a piscina with a quatrefoil-shaped basin, a reredos and altar rails made of carved vines, and stained glass in the east and north windows of the chancel and three windows of the nave, all dating from the early 20th century. The stairs to the turret in the porch have iron balusters designed in a matching style to the hinges found throughout the building.