Christ Church

A brief description in A Guide to the Anglican Churches in Newcastle states: ‘This is one of the very best examples of Victorian Gothic buildings, far surpassing many more famous places. It has been sensitively reordered to facilitate the modern catholic liturgical reforms but retain a sense of the numinous for which the passerby seems grateful’.

Christ Church is a parish church with attached church hall built in 1859-61 to designs by AB Higham all in a Victorian Gothic Decorated style. The church remains unaltered from that period. 

The church is built from squared sandstone with ashlar dressings and a pitched Welsh slate roof. A tall aisled nave has a distinctive south west tower. A similarly tall chancel exists with north vestry and south Lady Chapel. The first bay of the north aisle contains a canted former entrance porch. The church and adjoining church hall is Grade II* listed.

The external elevations are highly decorated. A shallow west porch has three gables over a tall two centred arched door and flanking triple niches. There is a large five light west window and paired light aisle windows to north and south sides. The east window consists of four light stained glass. The dominant south west tower projects forward and has angle buttresses with gargoyles under crocketed gables. A tall broach spire tops off the tower.

The interior church walls consist of painted plaster and painted ashlar. There is a timber arch braced roof structure over with high collar and queen posts. The chancel has medieval style floor tiling; elsewhere is timber flooring. Other internal features include a gothic panelled wood reredos in the chancel and a reconstructed medieval octagonal font to the east entrance.