Christ Church

Christ Church is a parish church dating to 1852-54, designed by Frederick Johnstone for William Cubitt to serve Cubitt’s estate. Later additions include a vestry enlargement of 1906-7 by J.E.K. & J.P. Cutts, and a baptistry at the base of the tower in 1909 by Bodley & Hare. The church is built of stock brick in Flemish bond, with Portland stone dressings, and has slate roofs. It is constructed on a plan comprising a nave, transepts, chancel, and a south steeple. The architectural style is Early English.

The west end features setback buttresses, with stepped buttresses on the north and south flanks. The arched west door has undercut mouldings, dog-tooth detailing, and two orders of columns. Five stepped lancets are positioned above the door, with a single lancet in the gable head. Each side bay of the nave has twin lancets. A gabled north porch has an arched entrance. The transepts feature setback buttresses, and each has three lancets with a cusped trefoil under the gable head. The tower is three-stage, with setback and pilaster buttresses. The arched south doorway mirrors the west door in detailing, and string courses define the stages. The ringing chamber has a single lancet on the west and south sides. The belfry stage has three louvred lancets on each face, beneath a corbelled course. The broached brick spire incorporates two tiers of lucarnes, each consisting of a lancet within a tall gablet. The chancel has three trefoil-headed stepped lancets on the east wall, and a tall lancet on the north side and three on the south. Setback east buttresses and stepped flanking buttresses are present.

The interior includes west screen and community rooms added in 1982-83 by Levitt Bernstein Associates. A double chamfered chancel arch is present, alongside a chamfered and hollow chamfered tower arch doorway with polygonal responds. The nave roof features large arched braces rising from expanded wall posts to collars, with elaborate detailing over the crossing including four flying arched braces meeting in the centre and supporting a crown post. A boarded chancel ceiling incorporates ribs. Furnishings include a plain marble font. A mural painting, "The Company of Heaven," by J.R. Spencer Stanhope (painted by F.A. Jackson) adorns the chancel arch. The chancel altar and reredos (north transept) hold painted panels in the Northern Renaissance style. A pulpit, with three painted panels by John Melhuish Strudwick (c. 1914) in a Pre-Raphaelite style depicting the Annunciation, is also present, along with a set of Stations of the Cross (c. 1938) by Ian Howgate. An organ (south transept), originally of 1911, was rebuilt in the 1950s by Noel Mander. Stained glass, including a depiction of Edward the Confessor (south-west nave), dates to c. 1920 by A.K. Nicholson.