Christchurch

Christchurch is a church built between 1874 and 1875 by architect Richard Makilwaine Phipson. The structure features random knapped flint with limestone and some brick dressings, topped with a plain tile roof in alternating shades. The gables are stone-coped, complete with kneelers and decorative ridge tiles. The church has a layout that combines the nave and chancel, with a west porch flanked by recessed porticoes under lean-to roofs. It includes buttresses with set-offs and windows that showcase fine decorated tracery with curvilinear elements.

The exterior features a striking four-light east window with delicate trilobe tracery set in spherical triangles, and a cross finial on the gable. There are four three-light nave windows, and the west wall has a three-light window topped by a gable and a moulded stone bell-cote crowned with a foliated cross. Below this is an unusual gabled porch with a moulded two-centre arched doorway, which is surmounted by an elaborate cross, and the porticoes on either side are supported by buttresses at the end walls.

Inside, the church boasts an elaborate roof divided into seven bays by principal arch-braced trusses on wall posts, with intermediate scissor-braced trusses. A vestry is formed by a carved wooden screen in a Gothic style around the entrance to the northwestern porticus. The interior retains original moulded pine pews and a carved polygonal pulpit, along with a low communion rail and carved royal arms recessed above the west door. This church is a finely detailed and virtually unaltered example of Phipson's work, who was known for his restorations and new buildings primarily in East Anglia.