Christ Church

CHRIST CHURCH

Christ Church stands prominently at a road junction on the main route out of Bradford on Avon towards Bath. It comprises a nave and west tower designed by G.P. Manners between 1839 and 1841, a new east end by Sir George Gilbert Scott added in 1877–78 with internal fittings designed by J.O. Scott after 1878, and a south-east chapel by C.E. Ponting built in 1919. The building is constructed of Bath limestone with slate roofs.

The church was established as a chapel of ease on a hilltop north-east of the town centre. The foundation stone was laid on 12 September 1839 and the building was consecrated on 17 November 1841, at a cost of £3862. Originally, the church had five bays with the altar against a flat east wall. The building plan comprises a rectangular four-bay nave without aisles, a west tower, a south-east porch, a chancel with organ chamber and vestries to the north, and a lady chapel to the south. Galleries once occupied the nave but were removed in 1884. The interior also contained nave bench pews from 1884 onwards.

Externally, the church adopts a nominally Perpendicular style with a plain long nave featuring tall three-light windows beneath a solid parapet. A buttressed and embattled south porch dates to 1884. The tower is relatively plain, of three stages with diagonal buttresses, crocketed pinnacles, and small two-light bell openings. An elegant spire rises from within the parapet and incorporates lucarnes. Pierced flying buttresses between the tower parapet angles and spire provide additional bracing.

The interior features a wide four-bay nave with an unusually detailed though somewhat delicate open truss roof incorporating cusped braces. A tall, narrow tower arch typifies the austere character of Manners's original work. In 1877–78, Scott divided the east bay of the nave with a chancel arch and added an extra bay beyond the east wall to form a sanctuary, apparently reusing the old east window tracery. Scott's additions respect Manners's Perpendicular vocabulary.

The church contains an exceptionally complete and virtually unchanged set of Late Victorian and Edwardian fittings, most designed after 1878 by John Oldrid Scott. The stone reredos with five quatrefoil panels was created by Farmer & Brindley in 1878 and painted by Burlisson & Grylls in 1884. The pulpit, made in 1889, is of oak with a square form, chamfered angles, a central wineglass stem, and four corner columns, carved with crisp opulence by Harry Hems. Its sounding board, dating to 1911, features concave curved sides and cherubs. Choir stalls date to 1878; an octagonal font with cherubs on the underside dates to 1841, with an ogee domed font cover carved by Harry Hems in 1884 on a pulley system incorporating a large iron cross by Skidmore of Coventry.

An oak eagle lectern by Sir G.G. Scott was made by Cox & Sons, London in 1878. Lavish oak chancel and parclose screens of 1891, made by Thompson of Peterborough, display Free Perpendicular tracery, elaborate vine friezes and brattishing. Flanking screens at the chapel entrances were made by Herbert Read of Exeter in 1909 under architect C.E. Ponting's direction; they incorporate Imperial double-headed eagles marking the aristocratic Russian descent of the donor, Canon Sidney Meade. Encaustic floor tiles in the sanctuary were supplied by Godwin of Lugwardine in 1891.

Wall paintings executed by Burlisson & Grylls in 1881 cover the nave, organ chamber and chancel, with a cream ground decorated with stars and suns, texts around the chancel arch, Christ in glory flanked by angels and saints, leaf borders in black and reds, and denser floral patterns in the sanctuary with figurative roundels around the east window. Big figures of angels appear on the nave west wall. Two additional borders were added to the nave in 1926, and the original brown dado was restencilled in blue. The lower nave was overpainted grey in 1973. The paintings were cleaned and conserved by Peter Martindale in 2004.

The south chapel, designed by Ponting, features a stone arched frame to the rose window and altar carved by Herbert Read in 1919. Read also carved an oak reredos depicting the Madonna, Child and ascending angels. Stained glass includes an east window by Clayton & Bell from 1879; chancel south and north windows by Powell & Sons from 1909 and 1919 respectively; a vivid blue and gold Lady Chapel south window by Powell & Sons from 1926; in the nave over the south door, a window by C.E. Kempe from 1884 with two flanking windows by Clayton & Bell surrounding a window by William Warrington from 1857; nave north windows from the east include two by Burlisson & Grylls and two by Kempe, all from the 1880s. A west window by Mark Angus in textured colourless glass dates to 1993.

The church occupies a large churchyard with low walls towards the road. Churchyard paths are framed by avenues of lime trees planted around 1841. Adjacent to the south-east stand former Christ Church schools, Gothic buildings of 1848 and 1879.

G.P. Manners (1789–1866) was city architect of Bath and designed numerous local churches in a sometimes austere Gothic style. Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811–78) began practice in the mid-1830s and became the most successful church architect of his era. Though sometimes criticised for over-restoration, his work was typically respectful of medieval buildings, while his new churches generally display a harmonious late 13th or early 14th century character. Scott also designed the Albert Memorial, the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras, and was knighted in 1872. He died shortly after the consecration of his work at Bradford on Avon. Subsequent work was overseen by his son J. Oldrid Scott, including decorative painting in 1881 and enlargement of the organ chamber in 1891. C.E. Ponting of Marlborough oversaw the addition of screens in 1909 and added a south chapel in 1919 as a war memorial to Lieutenant C.E. Moulton. Ponting (1850–1932) served as diocesan surveyor for the Wiltshire, Bristol and Dorset regions of the diocese of Salisbury between 1883 and 1928. He restored, repaired or enlarged approximately 225 churches, his work known for its sympathetic and harmonious character, and designed fifteen new churches. He also worked elsewhere in Britain and abroad, repairing the spire and carrying out underpinning at Salisbury Cathedral, though he never became a member of the RIBA.