Christ Church

Christ Church is a Victorian Gothic Revival church built in 1876 by Sir Arthur Blomfield, located on the south side of Christ Church Road, Epsom Common. The building is constructed of flint with stone dressings and has tiled roofs. A south aisle was added in 1879 and a tower in 1887.

The church plan comprises a nave with clerestory and lean-to aisles, a chancel with north and south transeptal chapels, a south east vestry, south east and north porches, and a north west tower.

The principal façade faces south and is dominated by the nave and aisle roofs and the gable end of the south transept chapel. The buttressed aisle features cusped lancet windows with pairs of cusped windows to the clerestory above. The south transept displays two pairs of cusped lancets beneath two very tall and narrow lancets and a blind quatrefoil, all within a common hood-mould. An octagonal chimney stack rises on the west side of the transept. At the west end stands a north tower of five stages with stepped, set-back buttresses and an embattled parapet. An embattled polygonal stair turret rises at its south west corner to above parapet level. The tower has a moulded doorway on its north side and small cusped windows, except for the belfry stage which has large Y-traceried windows. The east end has stepped buttresses flanking a large geometric five-light window in Decorated style. The west end of the nave has a pair of tall two-light windows with Decorated style tracery.

The interior is plastered and painted white, with fine architectural details such as piers, arches and window surrounds picked out in stone. The chancel has a wide double chamfered arch with a wall painting above of Christ flanked by angels. The arcades have double chamfered arches supported on quatrefoil piers with moulded capitals. The nave roof is timber in three tiers with arch-braced ties and collars to alternate trusses. The aisle roofs are also arch-braced. The chancel roof is a boarded wagon-roof divided into panels by moulded ribs.

The chancel is richly decorated with a three-bay alabaster reredos of 1886 containing figurative scenes in mosaic. The east wall is entirely decorated with tile and mosaic panels depicting the evangelists and their symbols. The tiled dado continues on the north and south walls. A sedilia and piscina with moulded stone arches on marble shafts are positioned in the south wall. The elegant wrought iron and bronze rood screen of 1909 features wrought brass panels and integral angel finials, resting on a low stone wall with marble inlaid panels. The polygonal stone pulpit of 1880, with decorative panels to its sides, was originally at St Andrew's Church in Surbiton. The octagonal stone font has curved lattice decoration on the sides of the bowl and a stem of clustered shafts with foliate capitals. The Victorian stained glass includes a south aisle window of 1883 by Holliday.

The church was built in an area of expanding Victorian population and housing development, constructed on the edge of Epsom Common as land to the south and east was being rapidly developed for housing. It was consecrated in 1876. Sir Arthur Blomfield was one of the last great Gothic Revivalists and a prolific church architect and restorer, receiving the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1891. The early addition of a south aisle in 1879 and tower in 1887 reflects the rapidly growing local population. The fine rood screen was added in 1909. The church remained largely unaltered until the 1990s, when minor reordering included the removal of nave benches and their replacement with upholstered chairs.