Christ Church

Christ Church is a stripped neo-Georgian church built on a concrete frame and clad in brown brick with stone dressings. The building has a barrel-vaulted roof covered in copper. It comprises a rectangular main body with a tower at the eastern end, low flat-roofed side aisles and ancillary rooms to north and south, and a church hall set at a transverse angle to the west end, behind which is a single-storey kitchen block.

The tower rises in three stages: a brick lower stage containing the main entrance, a slit window and a clock; a bell loft with louvres above; and a copper-clad pyramidal roof. The main entrance faces Blackfriars Road at the east end. It is a semi-circular-headed opening with gauged brickwork, a stone keystone, and a varnished hardwood door. The nave and sanctuary windows are segmental-headed, while those to the aisles and ancillary rooms have two-, three- or four-light mullions. All windows are leaded lights with metal glazing bars set in stone surrounds.

The church hall is approximately the same size as the nave and similarly styled, with a shallow barrel-vaulted roof. Its southern entrance features a stone statue of Christ set in a niche within a brick relieving arch. Four stone medallions bearing the insignia of the evangelists are placed on either side of the statue, beneath which is the entrance with a stone canopy and varnished hardwood doors.

Interior

The nave has five bays and the sanctuary one. Four shallow steps running the full width of the nave begin halfway along it and lead to the sanctuary. The second step is deeper than the others and forms a choir, furnished with timber choir stalls. There is a northern aisle, via which the church is entered, with dado panelling and built-in cupboards for hymn books. A small former chapel to the north of this aisle has now been enclosed and its fittings removed. At the west end, the nave is divided from the church hall by a glazed screen—a replacement of the original sliding doors—above which is the organ.

The interior fittings and finishes of the church and hall are largely contemporary with the original build. They include two timber pulpits, a lectern, and an elegant, slender font with brass detailing. The altar furnishings and communion rail were a memorial gift to the parish in 1959. The pews are original and bear coats of arms on their ends. The floor is parquet.

The church also includes a number of fittings of more recent date: an altar frontal made by local unemployed people in 1984; a mural behind the altar depicting Wall Street in New York, originally made for a National Theatre production; and 'New Regime' of 1989 by Ian Walters (1930-2006), a sculpture commemorating the dispute between News International and print workers during the move of printing presses from Fleet Street to the Docklands in 1986-7, located in the church hall. Walters' newspaper obituaries describe him as a figurative sculptor whose portraits celebrated the heroes of the left, including Nelson Mandela (now on London's South Bank), Harold Wilson (in Huddersfield), and a sculpture of Sylvia Pankhurst which was still in maquette form at the time he died.

Stained Glass

The most distinctive feature of the interior is the series of ten stained-glass nave windows by F W Cole, at this time working for Wippell and Co. Installed shortly after the church opened in 1960, they depict people, both contemporary and historical, at work in local business and industry, and in local situations. A British Pathe newsreel of May 1961 describes the newly installed windows and gives their theme as 'Work and Worship'. Each window comprises two panels: the larger at the top portrait-orientated above a smaller panel in landscape orientation, between which is a cartouche bearing emblems associated with each theme. The attention to detail is remarkable. In the window featuring the Routemaster, for example, the bus stop lists the numbers 4, 45 and 63 buses as stopping there; the latter two buses still stop outside the church. There is interest in the depiction of some of London's most famous historic places, including St Paul's Cathedral, Bankside Power Station (now Tate Modern) and the River Thames. Also significant is the depiction of local industry, of particular poignancy given that few such processes now take place in this area, which was once the principal place for factories and industrial works in the capital.

The subjects are as follows, with a) indicating the larger, upper panel and b) the lower panel.

North side (west to east):

1. a) Two charwomen in 1950s dress with mop and bucket, one looking out of a window towards St Paul's dome. b) Other women in 1950s dress in a London Transport bus stop queue and a Routemaster bus. The bus stop displays numbers 4, 45 and 63. The signature of K G Bunton features as lettering in the fascia of a shop, located to the left of the bus driver's cabin—Bunton was a staff artist for Wippell and Co at this time. The bus advertises Rice Crispies.

2. a) A baker in historical dress removing bread from a bread oven. b) 1950s bakers at work with industrial-sized ovens, in a factory setting.

3. a) Carpenters at work assembling a doorframe with a large seven-storey building under scaffolding in the background; the workers wear 20th century clothes. b) A 1950s building site showing labourers mixing cement and shovelling sand.

4. a) A woman in historical dress carrying a basket accompanied by a boy (with ball) and a girl (with doll), against a background showing the tower of Christ Church as it appeared in the 18th century and the weather-boarded, tiled-roofed vernacular houses of old Southwark. The scene is taken from a print of circa 1800. b) A nine-storey housing block with a car and pedestrians in silhouette in the foreground; this is the north façade of the public housing block on the north side of nearby Nelson Square, built in 1958.

5. a) A suited utilities worker, with a panel of dials and three telephones against a background scene of electricity pylons leading across hills and woodland. b) Bankside power station (now the Tate Modern) viewed from the south with St Paul's Cathedral beyond.

South side (west to east):

1. a) A man and a woman in 1950s dress in an office, with other clerical staff, a filing cabinet, a desk calendar, and a typewriter in the background. b) An office scene, with clerical workers at desks with typewriters or telephones.

2. a) A waterman on the Thames with cranes and wharfs behind. b) A panoramic view of the river Thames, showing St Paul's Cathedral and Blackfriars Bridge.

3. a) A printer in historical dress with his apprentice in front of a traditional printing press. b) Workers in a 1950s printing factory.

4. a) Goods for brewing being weighed in scales. b) Brewers loading ingredients into a mash tub and a copper.

5. a) A supervisor holding a plan and callipers oversees a worker at a milling machine, representing engineering. b) Two men manufacturing a crankshaft on a lathe.

The two sanctuary windows are also by Cole—these are signed and dated 1960, and depict the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist.

The windows in the north side aisle and the foyer are by John Lawson and depict the local companies and organisations that sponsored their creation in 1984.

Hall

The church hall has a parquet floor, dado-panelling, its original doors, and a modern suspended ceiling. A gallery at the southern end has been enclosed but its raked flooring and the gallery stair, with a solid timber balustrade, survive. There was originally a stage at its north end but this has been removed and a floor inserted into the space to create two floors of offices.