Christ Church

Christ Church is a church dating to 1868, designed by Ewan Christian in the 13th century English Gothic style. The building is constructed of coursed Bargate stone blocks with ashlar dressings, and has plain tiled roofs with decorative ridge crests. The church comprises an aisled nave with a chancel to the east, small transept chapels, and a square tower located at the north-west angle.

The three-stage tower features a battlemented parapet and octagonal stone drum finials under ogee domes and spherical caps. It has offset corner pier buttresses with ashlar quoining. The upper stage of the tower contains a large two-light plate roundel window on each face, with scalloped-end louvres, a hood mould, and a banded relieving arch. A stone clock face is situated below on the west face, and a lancet window is present on each face of the centre stage. The ground floor stage north side has a two-light and roundel window. Double foiled-head doors are set within ashlar surrounds with roll-moulded edges on the west face, above which is a roundel panel with a crucifix and stone tracery decoration under a hood mould set within granite jamb shafts.

The west end has two gables with buttresses at the junction and to the right. The left gable contains a large five-light lancet window with plate tracery, featuring foiled roundels over the outer paired lights and centre light, a hood mould, and a banded relieving arch over a chamfered surround and sill band. A three-light and triple roundel window is present on the right-hand gable. The north aisle has triple lancet windows alternating with buttresses, while the north and south transepts have three-light and roundel windows. The apsidal chancel to the east features five single lancets on a sill string, linked hood moulds over, a corbelled eaves band, and knapped flint decorative roundel panels between, incorporating zig-zag and triangle decoration in flint under the sill string. A gabled vestry is located to the east of the south aisle, with a two-light and roundel window on the east end and a shouldered door surround to the right. The south side of the vestry exhibits triple stepped lancet fenestration alternating with buttresses under common relieving arches. A gabled porch is situated on the south-west corner, with strapwork hinges on the double doors.

The interior features tiled floors and a square-panelled King-post nave roof with billeted wall plates. There's a three-bay north aisle arcade and a four-bay arcade to the south, employing wide marble columns with elaborate deep-carved still-leaf foliage caps and octagonal bases with broach stops. Marble jamb shafts are used on the chancel windows, complemented by gilt wall plates and roof ribs above. Fittings include 19th century elements such as an octagonal stone pulpit decorated with pierced arcaded tracery and marble centre shafts, with an octagonal stem below and a sounding board above. A round tub font sits on an octagonal stem with a moulded plinth. Stained glass is featured in a rich genealogical west window. Christ Church was originally a chapel of ease to Stoke.