Christ Church

Christ Church is a parish church dating from 1843, designed by Scott and Moffat, with a 20th-century addition. It is constructed of coursed sandstone rubble with limestone dressings, slate roofs with raised coped verges, and the addition is in reconstructed stone with an asbestos slate roof. The church comprises a nave, a south porch, a north vestry, a chancel, and a north organ chamber. It was designed in the Early English style, in keeping with the Commissioners’ tradition.

The 5-bay nave has a pointed arched west door with a surround of two chamfered orders, paired jamb shafts, and a hood mould with ballflower stops. Above the door is a large triple lancet window, with engaged shafts to the sides of the lights, a taller central light, and a similar hood mould with stops. A string course runs from the door cill to the window cill. Weathered angle buttresses are present. There is a bellcote with pointed arched openings, jamb shafts, and buttresses, and a blind trefoil in the gable. To the north, there are four paired lancets with a continuous cill string and a hood mould, interrupted by buttresses. The eastern bay houses a single-storey gabled vestry with a 2-light casement and door, and a plinth. To the south, there’s a paired lancet window and a gabled porch with two trefoil-headed windows on each side. The porch contains a pointed arched door with a surround of two chamfered orders, single jamb shafts, and a similar hood mould, topped with a cross finial. A single-storey 20th-century addition for church rooms is attached to the porch. The remaining three bays on the east side mirror the arrangement on the north side.

The 2-bay chancel is lower than the nave and has two lancets to the south and one to the north, with a plinth, cill string, and continuous hood mould. The east window is a triple lancet with a hood mould, stops, and a cill string, flanked by angle buttresses. The attached organ chamber to the north has chancel string courses continued over a pointed arched door and lancets.

The interior of the nave features a 5-bay roof with arched braces rising from stone corbels, a collar, queen-posts, and braces to the upper collar. A 20th-century gallery spans the west end, and there is a pointed segmental-headed door to the vestry. A high pointed chamfered arch leads to the chancel, with an upper inner order springing from corbels. The chancel has a similar 4-bay roof with a central truss and pendants to the vertical members. The church contains a panelled wooden reredos in the chancel, a hexagonal carved wooden pulpit in the nave, a stone octagonal font in the nave with a stem and four shafts, and brass candelabra also in the nave.