Christ Church

Christ Church is a Decorated Gothic Revival style church dating from 1858, designed by A.D. Gough. It was constructed with random rubble sandstone walls, with a brick plinth on the north aisle, and covered by slate roofs with crested ridge tiles.

The church comprises a five-bay nave, a lower-roofed chancel, a small lean-to south vestry, and a north organ chamber. There is also a north aisle, a north transept (now a vestry), a southwest porch, and a southwest bell turret. All windows feature flowing tracery and carved dripstone terminals; the nave and north aisle windows are identical. The nave has buttresses with crocketted gables. A tall gabled west porch leads to a seven-light west window with a Flamboyant traceried wheel. Lean-to projections extend from the chancel to the north and south. The north aisle is buttressed and has a roundel window with star tracery. The north transept has small flying buttresses relating to the churchyard retaining wall. A shallow gabled porch has a double-chamfered doorway, an iron gate with cross finials, and a two-leaf plank door with strap hinges. A distinctive octagonal southwest bell turret, topped with a stone spire featuring a frieze of trefoil-headed open arcading, is a key exterior feature.

Inside, the church is noted for its naturalistic carved detail. The chancel arch sits on short stone shafts with carved corbels and capitals, exhibiting carved decoration. A painted frieze is positioned above the chancel arch. The north aisle arcade features octagonal piers with carved capitals. The nave has arch braced roofs with carved corbels, intermediate trusses and complex curved braces above the collar. The aisle and chancel roofs are similarly constructed. The Decorated style chancel includes a triple sedilia with marble shafts, carved capitals, trefoil-headed arches, together with a superordinate arch on the south wall, and encaustic tiles. Painted texts are present on the east wall, flanking the east window and on the returns of the north and south walls, with a frieze of painted decoration around the E window, which was repainted around 1992. A timber reredos from the early 20th century features symbols in cusped panels. Other fittings include a font with an octagonal bowl containing blind traceried panels, a polygonal timber pulpit, late 19th-century nave benches with shaped ends, and a canted stone screen to the north transept, which now serves as a vestry and a World War II memorial.

Christ Church is a well-preserved, distinctive example of Gothic Revival architecture, notable for its attractive bell tower, flowing tracery, and naturalistic carved detail. The painted texts and frieze are particularly noteworthy features and the church incorporates a World War II Memorial.