Christ Church

Christ Church is a town church occupying a corner site in a setting of early 19th-century terraces to the east and late 19th-century houses and shops. It is an evolved 19th and early 20th-century building of considerable architectural interest.

The original church was designed by Benjamin Ferrey and built in 1858-59, of which only the west wall of the nave now survives. The building was substantially extended and remodelled from 1870 onwards. A south aisle and tower were added in 1870, though the tower was not completed until 1879. The chancel was designed by E E Scott of Brighton and begun in 1878, with the existing nave roof built in the same year by builder Mr Peerless of Eastbourne. The north aisle, west porch, and chancel completion followed in 1879. A First World War Memorial Chapel was added in 1922 to designs by G H Shackle of Marlborough, with carvings by C Godfrey Garrard. The nave altar was installed in 1991.

The building is constructed of flint rubble with ashlar stone bands, freestone dressings, and tiled roofs. The plan comprises an apsidal chancel, nave with west porch, four-bay north arcade, three-bay south arcade, south-west tower, north-east chapel and vestry, south-east organ chamber, and south War Memorial Chapel with apsidal east end.

The exterior of the 1859 west end displays a pair of large two-light Decorated-style traceried windows beneath a substantial rose window in the gable. The 1879 porch features a lean-to roof over a good carved inner doorway from 1859. The four-stage south-west tower has set-back buttresses and an octagonal south-west stair turret with slit windows and a shoulder-headed doorway. The turret rises above the tower roof and terminates in a stone spirelet. The tower features a moulded south doorway with shafts bearing waterleaf capitals, a low pyramidal roof, and a parapet of pierced trefoils. An order of blind arcading and two-light Decorated-style traceried belfry windows with slate louvers ornament the tower. The north aisle is buttressed with set-offs and displays four three-light Decorated-traceried windows with alternating tracery designs and ballflower dripstones to the hoodmoulds. The north-east vestry block has a gabled roof and an east-end stack with a tall octagonal shaft. The six-sided chancel has lancet windows. The War Memorial Chapel features a semi-circular apse with clasping buttresses and two two-light Decorated-style traceried south windows, with lancets in the apse.

The interior contains a moulded chancel arch on shafts. The chancel is decorated with blind Early English-style arcading divided into bays by shafts that extend to the stone vault as ribs. A low stone chancel screen with carved decoration and marble coping is integral with a polygonal stone pulpit. The north arcade has circular piers with waterleaf capitals; the south arcade has octagonal piers with waterleaf capitals. The nave roof is a canted and boarded tie beam with arched braces, divided into panels by moulded ribs. The arched braces have an ogee profile and the roof features a brattished wallplate with painted decorated panels. The south aisle roof is more elaborate than the north aisle, with a pierced sexafoil to each truss. A richly carved and decorated two-bay screen leads to the War Memorial Chapel. A statue of Christ, carved by C Godfrey Garrard, stands within. The rib-vaulted apse is approached through a moulded stone arch. The polygonal font has chamfered corners to the bowl on a cylindrical stem with marble shafts; a 1966 font cover was added later. Nave benches have square-headed ends with panels. North aisle benches have shouldered ends and a Y-shaped base with pierced trefoil-headed decoration. The windows display geometrical patterned stained glass except at the east end and memorial chapel. High-quality apse windows from 1880-1884 are by Clayton and Bell, and 1920s windows in the War Memorial Chapel include a central window commemorating Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria, who worshipped here.

The church has group value with the adjacent infants' school, which bounds one side of the area in front of the west end.