Christ Church

Christ Church, Malvern

A church built in 1875, designed by T. D. Barry and Sons Ltd of Liverpool. The building is constructed of rockfaced yellow sandstone with ashlar dressings and has a plain tile roof with decorative ridge tiles.

The church comprises three cells with a west tower, nave with two south porches, north and south aisles, chancel with a Sacristy to the north and Lady Chapel to the south.

The west tower rises in four stages to a corbelled table with gargoyles at the angles and in the centre of each face. Above this sits a broach spire with lucarnes on two levels set at opposite diagonal stages, divided by offsets carried across from angled buttresses. The tower has stepped angle buttresses and a plinth. On the top stage are pairs of pointed arch openings with simple reticulated tracery and timber boards with quatrefoil cutouts on all four elevations. The west front features an entrance door with double timber doors set beneath a deeply moulded pointed arch with hood mould terminating in a decorative crocket finial and foliate ball stops. The west elevation is pierced by three quatrefoils; the north elevation is plain rockfaced. On the second stage, the south elevation carries a dedication stone set in a pointed arch with geometric tracery featuring quatrefoils and trefoils. The third stage has a pair of single long narrow windows with ogee heads.

A distinctive feature throughout all four elevations is the very fine window tracery, largely set in pointed headed arches with moulded drip stones rising from foliate ball stops, executed in geometric patterns with a variety of motifs including quatrefoils, trefoils, cinquefoils and mouchettes. Windows of two lights occur in bays one, three, four, five and six of the south aisle elevation, bays one and two of the Lady Chapel south elevation, the second bay of the Sacristy, and bays two, three, four and five of the north aisle. Grander windows of similar design appear on the east elevation in the gables of the Lady Chapel, Chancel and Sacristy, comprising three, five and two lights respectively. Beneath the Sacristy is a simple shouldered flat-headed entrance to a boiler room below with a chimney on the north side of the gable.

Clerestory windows form pairs of pointed arch-headed windows with simple reticulated tracery and moulded drip stones rising from foliate ball stops. There are four pairs above the south aisle and six pairs above the north aisle.

The south porch occupies the second bay and has angled buttresses, a pointed arch doorway with moulded drip stone terminating in foliate ball stops and a cruciform finial atop a steeply pitched plain tile roof. The east and west elevations of the porch feature pairs of ogee-headed windows. The porch steps up to a second transept with a single arched window containing geometric tracery.

At the end of the south aisle is a priest's porch with an octagonal Sanctus bellcote topped by a spirette. The porch is square in plan with set-back stepped buttresses and a narrow deeply set timber door with a shouldered triangular head set in a crocheted mock gable. Gargoyles project from the angles at the string course. The bell cote has pierced lancet-headed openings with simple reticulated tracery. The octagonal spirette has trefoil piercing and lucarnes at the cardinal points.

The north façade has a north entrance to the Sacristy reached by external stone stairs with simple iron handrails on top of a solid stone balustrade. The door has a pointed arch with moulded drip stones rising from foliate ball stops. A second north door in the easternmost bay of the north transept also features a pointed arch with moulded drip stone and foliate ball stops.

The interior is simple in character. The nave roof is a pointed tunnel vault in plain form. The chancel has a simple wagon roof, and the aisles have timber pent roofs. The nave features an arcade of alternating drum columns and octagonal piers with rather stiff foliate capitals. The aisles are wainscoted in tongue and groove timber panelling. Most of the original pews remain in situ, except at the rear where they have been removed to create a modern meeting space. The nave and aisles are paved in red and black quarry tiles set on the diagonal. The sanctuary beyond the altar rails has a fine polychrome encaustic pavement. The original pitch pine and wrought iron choir stalls, altar rails, pulpit and altar survive in place.

The east window was designed by Charles Eomer Kemp in 1895. The font is carved in octagonal pale stone with niches alternating saints and scripts, separated by black marble shafts. The organ, occupying the end of the north transept, is by Nicholsons of Malvern Link, installed in 1884, and has 1486 painted pipes. The Lady Chapel, at the end of the south transept, contains a window by Clayton and Bell from 1886. A 1914-18 war memorial in white marble with an alabaster surround was created by the Bromsgrove Guild in 1921.

Christ Church was built in 1875 in the expanding suburb around the newly opened railway station. It was founded by the Lady Emily Foley, the Lady of the Manor, at a cost of £8,000–£9,000. The architect, T. D. Barry and Sons Ltd of Liverpool, was a well-established practitioner of the Gothic style and a known church architect.