Christ Church

Christ Church, Dartford

A church built in a residential area on the outskirts of Dartford. Designed by W.D. Caröe and begun in 1904, the church was consecrated in 1909 in a free Byzantine style, though it remained incomplete at that date with only three of the four intended nave bays constructed. The tower was added around 1960, parish rooms were added to the east after 1960, and a west porch was added in 1986.

The church is built of red brick with tile and toothed brick banding, with tiled roofs. The main structure consists of a four-bay nave with clerestory, narrow aisles, and a north transept. The original porch stands on the north side between the transept and aisle, with a later west porch added to the west elevation.

The exterior displays Byzantine-influenced features throughout. The nave is buttressed with lancet windows set under wide segmental arches, and massive east end buttresses with decorated gables. The north and south sides are decorated with carvings in roundels and lozenges. The north elevation presents the principal façade, with a tall two-bay buttressed transept carrying two gables to the north and round-headed windows beneath wide segmental tiled arches. Blind decoration and roundels appear in the gables. The aisle on this side is flat-roofed with a parapet and small round-headed windows. The south aisle's west bay mirrors the north side, but the remainder is wider and taller with triple windows and a blind canted east end. The chancel has a lower roof than the nave, with chunky square-plan buttresses (one serving as a chimney stack) decorated with brick detailing and blind arcading on the north and south walls. The east window is a three-light triple lancet. The circa 1960 tower has a saddleback roof and a very tall west window divided into plain glass lights, flanked by lean-tos with copper roofs. Gabled church room and vestry blocks are attached to the east and north-east of the chancel.

The interior is plastered with tile and brick dressings and decorative bands. A round-headed chancel arch leads to a plain barrel-vaulted chancel. Sedilia comprise simple stepped seats in a round-headed tiled recess. The nave ceiling is flat and divided into panels, with cross beams on corbels with capitals that continue as a stone cornice. The corbels are supported on continuous stone piers that form clerestory recesses and aisle bays. Narrow aisles feature low round-headed arches, with two aisle bays to each clerestory bay. The aisle arcade continues across the north transept, with the east bay floored for the organ chamber. On the south side, the arcade is doubled with tiled cross ribs extending into the south chapel, which has a low segmental tiled arch to the sanctuary. A marble font with a shallow round bowl on a shaped stem, a timber drum pulpit on a stem with timber brackets, and elegantly simple bench ends complete the furnishings.

Caröe's design was at least partly based on the 6th-century Church of St Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, drawing on both the plan form and the decorative use of thin tiles, as well as the style of the nave arcades and chancel. When consecrated in 1909, the church was incomplete. An appeal launched ten years later for £10,000 to complete the church shows that only the three bays and north transept had been built at that stage, with a temporary propped west end. The church was never completed entirely to Caröe's original design. The most significant departure is the west tower, added in 1963 along with the final nave bay and the south chapel. Caröe's original design had intended a tower at the east end of the nave with a gabled west end.

The church is listed Grade II as a good example of a Caröe church of circa 1909. Although the exterior, with its circa 1960 and later additions by other hands, is architecturally less successful, the interior remains of considerable quality and refinement.