Parish Church Of Christ Church

Parish Church of Christ Church

Christ Church is a parish church built in 1831 by architects Oates & Pickersgill, with transepts and chancel added in 1861 by Lockwood & Mawson. It is constructed of hammer-dressed sandstone with a slate roof.

The church follows a cruciform plan with a west tower and porches, a north organ chamber, south vestry and crypt. The nave and west tower display the simple Gothic style characteristic of the early 19th century. The five-bay nave has a plain parapet, pilaster buttresses with gabled caps and square corner pinnacles, and tall pointed windows. On the north side, a shorter window in the first bay sits above a link to a later parish centre. The four-stage tower has angle buttresses rising to gabled caps and an embattled parapet, with windows featuring broad chamfers. A large pointed west window appears below a shorter window in the second stage, with a round clock in the short third stage and a pointed belfry opening with louvres. Gabled porches flank the tower and house the stairs, featuring pointed west doorways with double doors, above which are cusped circles, and pointed north and south stair windows.

The transepts and chancel, added in 1861, are executed in a more studied Early-English style. The transept windows are paired lancets with ringed shafts; on the south side, a pointed doorway with two orders of shafts sits below the windows. The chancel east window comprises three stepped lancets with detail matching the transepts, below two blind trefoils, while the north wall contains paired lancets. The north organ chamber has a lancet window in its gabled east wall. A later south vestry obscures a south chancel window and is situated under a pitched roof at right angles to the chancel, with a projecting gable in its east wall.

The interior features a nave roof of closely spaced queen-post trusses with diagonal struts on brackets and a foliage cornice. Behind the trusses is a plastered ceiling incorporating cast-iron grilles. The nave west wall contains triangular-headed doorways from the gallery stairs and a blind Tudor arch above the gallery. At the east end are transept arches with continuous moulding and crossing arches on corbelled shafts. The head and foliage corbels are gilded. The crossing has a wooden rib vault. The chancel and transepts have arched-brace roofs. Walls are plastered, and walls and roofs are painted. The floor is paved with flagstones and has raised floorboards below pews. Porches retain stairs with twisted iron balusters and wooden handrail.

The only surviving fixture from 1831 is the three-sided raked gallery, carried on cast-iron quatrefoil posts with bell capitals, with a panelled front incorporating an open quatrefoil frieze. The font in the south transept, dated 1875, has a quatrefoil freestone bowl with inscription on marble shafts. A High-Victorian alabaster pulpit is square with bowed front and arcading on marble shafts, carried on five marble pillars with waterleaf capitals. Early 20th-century benches have moulded ends with arm rests and roundels. Chancel fittings are also of the early 20th century, including wooden screens to the organ chamber and vestry, and a communion rail. Choir stalls by Thompson of Kilburn have ends with poppy heads and open fronts. The reredos by Ninian Comper is a hinged triptych with quattrocento-style painting in gilded panels, incorporating a central gilded Ascension. Nave windows contain pictorial glass in ovals, and the east window is by Powell & Co.

The church was designed by John Oates (1793–1831) of Halifax and James Pickersgill (c.1807–69) of York. Oates had a busy practice in the 1820s, during which he built several Gothic churches; his best-known secular works included Huddersfield Infirmary and Halifax Assembly and Concert Rooms. Plans from 1831 do not show the west porches and suggest that originally there was no projecting chancel. The transepts and present chancel were added in 1861 by Henry Lockwood (1811–78) and William Mawson (1828–89), architects of Bradford, in a more archaeologically correct Early-English style; they are best known for their work at Saltaire, Yorkshire. In 1988 a parish centre was added on the north side of the church, with a link from the north entrance to the nave.