Christchurch United Reformed Church

Christchurch United Reformed Church is a Gothic style building dating from the 18th century, featuring an unusual arrangement of elements expressed on its western facade facing Water Street. The construction uses rock-faced coursed rubble with freestone cornice and sill bands, topped with a slate roof and tiled cresting. The chapel is located on the right, a saddlebacked stair tower in the centre, and a gabled lecture hall to the left, with a single-storey porch projecting from its north wall. The porch has a simple arched doorway and three lancet windows below a rose window set within an arched panel with a hood mould within the asymmetrical gable of the hall. The central tower contains the main entrance to the hall and chapel, accessed through a deeply moulded archway beneath a small projecting gable. Above the archway are three lancet windows, and a plate-traceried window with a trefoiled hood mould in the upper stage. The west gable of the chapel has a gabled porch framed by gabletted buttresses, with a plate-traceried composite window above. All doorways incorporate plain plank doors with ornate strap hinges. The south elevation is divided by buttresses into three bays, each with a two-light plate-traceried window. An organ chamber gable extends eastward, featuring a rose window set in an arched, panelled recess. A small polygonal bay with paired lancet windows and a steep canted roof is situated in the southwest angle of the nave and western narthex. A shallow canted projection extends from the east wall, with a small, plate-traceried window set high up.

Inside the chapel, a narrow western narthex leads to a gallery, with the remainder of the space undivided. The wide span is roofed by a hammerbeam roof, featuring pierced panelling in the spandrels and fluted corbels supporting the wall posts. The timberwork is heavily moulded and chamfered, with wrought iron tie rods and posts, and the main trusses linked by arcade braces. The western bay is occupied by a gallery with a pierced and foiled frieze to the panelled parapet. An original screen divides a small entrance lobby from the main body of the church. A shallow, canted recess to the east houses the pulpit, and the organ is located in a shallow gabled transept to the south. The seating appears to be contemporary with the chapel's construction. Stained glass windows in three south windows commemorate those who died in World War II. Similar north windows provide borrowed light for the lecture hall alongside.

Stairs to the galleries of both the chapel and the lecture hall are located within the tower. The lecture hall is largely lit by borrowed light from the chapel to the south and the rose window in the screened-off room occupying its western gallery. Further light is provided by lancet windows behind the stage to the east, and by skylights. The hall has five bays, with cambered trusses carried on wall posts and boarded above the collar.