Christ Church

Christ Church

This large town church occupies a corner site in St Leonards, a 19th-century development, with its east end overlooking a hill on the main road running north through the area. Built between 1873 and 1875 in Early English style to designs by Sir Arthur Blomfield, it was consecrated in 1884. The tower, also by Blomfield, was added in 1894-1895, and the west end was extended by two bays in 1927 to designs by Mr Hare. The chancel was refurbished in 1933.

The church is constructed of rock-faced rubble brought to course with stone dressings and a slate roof featuring coloured bands to the nave and chancel. The tower is topped with a tall stone spire. The interior plan comprises a nave and chancel with six-bay arcades extending across the transepts, flanked by north and south lean-to aisles. A north-east Lady Chapel stands opposite south-east vestries in a tall block that includes a chancel south gallery and chapel. The west end has an organ gallery. A complex of ancillary rooms occupies the south side, including an unusual mortuary chapel. Two porches project from the north side.

The exterior presents an impressive east elevation with buttresses. The chancel east window displays five stepped lancets below a two-light window set in the gable. North of the chancel stands a large octagonal tower with lancet windows and a gabled stair turret to the north incorporating a street-level doorway. The belfry stage is finished in ashlar masonry, and stone gargoyles project at the base of the stone spire, which features two tiers of lucarnes.

A three-storey narrow gabled block to the south contains three tiers of windows and a carving of King David in the gable. To its south extends a lower two-bay two-storey block with lean-to roofs hipped to the south, containing the mortuary chapel on the ground floor with its own entrance. The north-east chapel is a two-bay buttressed structure under a tall lean-to roof with triple lancet windows, its sanctuary contained within the tower. A gabled porch alongside displays a carved figure in a vescica in its gable. To the west, paired lancets light the clerestory between pilasters above the buttressed lean-to aisle with blind sides to north and south. The west end addition, added in 1927, is blind at clerestory level and features a gabled porch in the west bay on the north side, with a triple lancet west window.

The interior displays six-bay arcades with circular piers and moulded capitals. The eastern piers in the chancel carry four shafts with stiff-leaf foliage capitals. A cusped timber chancel arch, dating from circa 1900-1913, rests on stone wall shafts, surmounted by a rood beam. The boarded canted wagon roof features moulded ribs springing from moulded stone corbels, while the chancel roof incorporates painted panels. The lean-to aisle roofs employ struts to the arcade walls with ties extending to the principal rafters. The Lady Chapel ceiling is a boarded wagon roof divided into panels by moulded ribs, with an elaborately carved and painted wall plate.

The chancel is exceptionally grand and richly decorated, featuring a large architectural three-bay blind arcade across the east wall on half-piers with carved capitals. Paintings occupy the apex of the arches and lower arcading within them. The east wall above is decorated with carved figures in elongated quatrefoils and painted decoration including figures. This figurative wall painting was executed under the supervision of Bodley and Hare in 1908. The south side includes sedilia with projecting carved angel orchestra in the spandrels, the recesses painted with figures. Matching plainer blind arcading on the north side also contains figure paintings from 1908. A large stone drum pulpit displays marble figure groups under ogee arches on marble shafts, the stem similarly furnished with marble shafts.

The 1933 chancel refurbishment, designed by Sir William Milner and R B Craze, removed the earlier late 19th-century chancel screen and re-floored the chancel with marble steps and paving, while embellishing the altar with marble cladding and gold mosaic.

The 1927 west end gallery rests on a triple arcade of short round stone piers with capitals, fronted by an ashlar parapet. A 1910 wrought iron screen to the west part of the Lady Chapel displays elaborate cresting of gilded lilies. Wall paintings in the Lady Chapel by Bodley and Hare, part of a redecoration scheme of 1906, complement a large carved Virgin and Child positioned over the arch leading into the Lady Chapel sanctuary, which is enclosed by a wrought iron sanctuary screen. The sanctuary features a steeply painted vault and an alabaster altar of 1891. An octagonal stone font of 1905, with bowl decorated with crocketted gables on marble shafts with waterleaf bases, stands in the nave. The font is surmounted by a carved timber cover rising in tiers to a crocketted spirelet. The south-east chapel, refurbished in 1921, displays grilles, an altar and reredos designed by Hare, with painted wall scenes.

The church contains high-quality 19th-century stained glass including clerestory windows of 1904 by Burlison and Grylls, four eastern clerestory windows by Hardman, Lady Chapel windows by Heaton, Butler and Bayne, a west window in the gallery by Burlison and Grylls, and windows below the west gallery by Heaton, Butler and Bayne.

The south side contains an unusual mortuary chapel, complete with its fittings and decorations, though used for storage at the time of a 2002 visit.

The church possesses two elevational drawings by Blomfield, not showing the tower, which are displayed within the church, alongside others reported to be in poor condition.