Christ Church

TQ 29 SE 31/39/10395 01-SEP-00

HIGH ROAD North Finchley 620 Christ Church

II

Church. Built as a mission church to the navvies building the London, Highgate and Edgware Railway and designed by John Norton in Gothic style 1867-9. It was built in stages as the funds became available; nave 1869, aisles 1874, chancel, side chapel and vestry 1891. The projected south west tower with spire was never built. Built of coursed Kentish ragstone with ashlar dressings and slate roof. West front has large central gable with large rose window within round-headed arch supported on granite columns. Aisles have one lancet each. Narthex has five pointed arched windows with oculus and two lancets each. Entrances in sides with pointed arches with two tiers of colonnettes under triangular dripmould. Aisles are of 5 bays with gables with tall arched windows with double lancets, colonnettes and oculi and are divided by buttresses. Chancel has large gable with tall arched window with octagonal-shaped oculus, and three lancets below with cinquefoils and double trefoliated lancets. South east chapel of two bays has 2 lancets with trefoils and trefoliated heads. North east vestry of two storeys with arched windows with two trefoil heads. INTERIOR: Red brick walls with black lozenge patterns. Five bay nave with pointed arched arcading on clustered columns with foliate capitals. Plain boarded roof with metal tierods and bays outlined by wooden ribs with trefoil decoration. Stained glass in West rose window of c1870 by Bell and Co. with abstract patterns. West wall also has First World War memorial in form of an arched tympanum over the west door showing the Risen Christ and six pointed arches with marble colonnettes bearing the names of the fallen. South aisle window first fom the east has stained glass of 1868 by W H Constable. Square stone font on octagonal base with corner columns and wooden pyramidal-topped cover of 1921. Hexagonal wooden pulpit. Original wooden pews throughout except for a few removed from south aisle. Original tiled floors. Large chancel arch with cross, Alpha and Omega signs and double stone colonnettes. Chancel of three bays with trefoil-shaped boarded roof with ribs supported on stone corbels. Low pink marble chancel screen with quatrefoil cutouts. Wood and metal communion rail and tessellated pavement to Sanctuary with initials JHS. Double sedilia with trefoil heads to south east and niche to north east. Six light stained glass east window with Te Deum, c1911 by James Powell. Stained glass to south east chapel by A L Moore c1891-2.

[BOE "London: North". p119.]

This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Online. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 29 August 2017.