Christ Church

TQ 57 NW VICTORIA ROAD

959/3/4 Christ Church

17.12.1980 II*

Parish church. 1874 by J P St Aubyn. Yellow stock brick with polychrome red brick decoration and stone dressings; red tiled roof. Mainly lancet windows, paired to nave. Aisled 5-bay nave, with entrances in narthex; almost detached north-west tower of 1914 with stone broached spire; chancel with buttressed polygonal apse; south chapel with polygonal apse; north vestry. INTERIOR: Nave arcade has round piers, with stiff-leaf capitals. Nave has three tier hammerbeam roof with curved braces supported on stone corbels. Chancel has five fine lancet windows by Hardman of 1875 depicting scenes from the Gospels, reredos of painted triptych of the Adoration of the Magi in a C15 Italian style by A O Hemming of 1904, stencilled decoration, triple sedilia and polychrome tiles. Nave has original carved wooden lectern, pews, stone and - granite font, wall tablet on west wall to Thomas Ruck, organist between 1881-1918 with mosaicwork cherubs and eight painted panels depicting scenes from the early history of the Church in England from the martyrdom of St Alban to the martyrdom of St Edmund by Ward and Hughes of 1906-9. [Pevsner BOE London South p277. Roger Homan "Victorian Churches of Kent". 1984. P54.]

Listing NGR: TQ5124677889