Christ Church

Christ Church, Skipton, is a parish church built between 1837 and 1839 by Robert Chantrell, the Leeds-based architect and former pupil of Sir John Soane. Parish rooms were added to the south side of the church around 1982.

The church is constructed of coursed sandstone with freestone dressings and a slate roof. It follows an ambitious design in simple Geometrical Gothic style, comprising an aisled nave with a west tower, a lower aisled chancel built over a crypt, and a plan that demonstrates Chantrell's archaeological approach to Gothic architecture.

The two-stage tower features diagonal buttresses rising to large corner pinnacles and an open arcaded parapet. The west doorway has a single order of shafts beneath a tall three-light window, with two-light belfry openings fitted with louvres. The nave, chancel and aisles are buttressed with coped gables, including diagonal buttresses. The chancel features arcaded eaves. The six-bay nave contains two-light windows with Y-tracery, while the aisles have taller two-light windows with geometrical tracery. The three-bay chancel has two-light clerestorey windows and a four-light east window. The chancel aisles have Y-tracery windows on their north and south sides, with the south side containing a link to the late 20th-century parish rooms. The crypt entrance lies beneath the east window, marked by a doorway with continuous moulding flanked by lancet windows.

The interior is notably complete and impressive. Nave arcades feature octagonal piers with finely moulded arches, while the chancel arch is finely moulded on polygonal responds. Plaster rib vaults spring from corbelled wall shafts in the arcade spandrels, decorated with foliage bosses in the nave and aisles. The chancel vault is similarly vaulted but richly painted with gilded bosses and stencilled decoration. A south chapel created in the 1920s contains painted decoration by Sir Charles Nicholson, who may also have been responsible for the chancel vault painting—the church possesses a drawing signed by him showing this scheme. Walls are plastered and painted throughout. The floor is stone-paved except for raised floorboards beneath pews and a black and white marble floor in the chancel. The crypt's western section is aisled with three-bay arcades on octagonal piers beneath rib vaults, while the eastern section comprises plainer cells arranged off a central passageway.

The font is round-bowled with an arcaded stem in 13th-century style. Benches have plain square ends with arcaded frontals. Most chancel furnishings date from a 1905 refurbishment and include Arts and Crafts panelling on the north and south walls with a vine-trail frieze, and a communion rail with intricate tracery panels. Choir stalls feature ends with ball finials, armrests and blind-tracery panels. The Gothic-panelled reredos dates from 1953 and was made by Thompson of Kilburn. The north aisle contains a polished stone war memorial of 1914–18 with a central sculpture of Christ flanked by an engraved roll of names. An Arts and Crafts tile wall plaque commemorates Elizabeth Onions, who died in 1895. Stained glass windows are predominantly late 19th and early 20th century, including a south aisle window by Burlison & Grylls. The east window dates from 1945.