British Listed Buildings

Listing Text

SOWERBY BRIDGE WHARF STREET
SE 0623-0723
(north side)
13/297
Christ Church
15.11.66
GV II

Church. 1819 by John Oates, chancel rebuilt. 1873-4, re-roofed 1894. Ashlar,
roof not visible. West tower with north and south additions, galleried nave,
chancel with north organ chamber. Perpendicular style. Tower: 3 stages; off-set
diagonal buttresses. West face - flat-headed 3-light window with 2-light window
above to 1st stage; single-light window to 2nd stage; clock in base of 3-light
window to 3rd stage; windows pointed-arched under hoodmoulds, some with headstops.
Slit vents to right on all stages. Embattled parapet with pinnacles. North and
south faces above the 2-storey additions are as west face, southern addition
embattled with pointed-arch doorway and cusped tracery to windows. Nave: 6 tall
bays. Plinth. Offset buttresses with pinnacles. On left, steps up to pointed-arch
door in roll-moulded doorway, the surround breaking forward with shields in
spandrels and flanked by pinnacled columns; 3-light window above. This and other
windows pointed-arch, of 3 lights, transomed, and under hoodmoulds with grotesque
headstops. Chancel: 2 bays, narrower. Chamfered plinths, offset buttresses.
On left, steps down to basement doorway. Windows as nave but of 2 cusped lights.
Embattled parapet; right buttress rising into thick crocketed pinnacles; gable
cross. 3 plain pointed-arch windows to east front; north front (chancel) plainer.
Interior: horseshoe gallery with panelled front supported by cast-iron quatrefoil-
section columns. Tall, blind, pointed tower arch with basket-arched ground-floor
opening and pointed-arched gallery opening. Hammer-beam nave roof of 1894 with
cusped-headed sections, the trusses supported on columns as for gallery which rise
from octagonal shafts. Plain pointed arch to chancel which has tessellated floor
and elaborate Gothic-style stone reredos and wooden chancel screen (1935). Poly-
chromatic marble war memorial (1921). Pitch pine pews with book drawers. Octagonal
font of 1895 has panels decorated and with apostles' symbols and supported by
central shaft with outer colonnettes on square base. Small table dated 1520 with
turned legs from Brig Chapel, which this church replaced.
Rev J W Winder, The Storey of Sowerby Bridge Church (1945).
Kelly's Directory, 1897.


Listing NGR: SE0622123722

Source: English Heritage

Listed building text is © Crown Copyright. Reproduced under licence: PSI Click-use licence number C2008002006.