Description

679/4/58 CHURCH LANE
23-NOV-73 MOUNT PELLON
CHRIST CHURCH

II
DATES OF MAIN PHASES, NAME OF ARCHITECT: Parish church of 1853-54 by Mallinson & Healey, with later addition of north aisle, porch and chapel.

MATERIALS: Coursed dressed sandstone with freestone dressings, slate roof.

PLAN: Asymmetrical plan of aisled nave with south-west tower, north-west porch, chancel with south organ chamber and north chapel and vestry

EXTERIOR: Large parish church in a free Decorated style. Its 3-stage tower has angle buttresses and embattled parapet. The lower stage is the porch, with continuous double chamfer to the south doorway and single-light west window with quatrefoil tracery. The middle stage has ogee-headed windows below clock faces in south and west walls and 2-light belfry openings. The south aisle has four 3-light square-headed windows. The nave has a 4-light west window. The added north aisle is under a separate roof. It has a 3-light west window with reticulated tracery, above a porch with segmental-pointed south doorway and ogee-headed west window. The porch roof is concealed behind a parapet, and on the north side is an added boiler room. The buttressed 5-bay north wall of the aisle has 2-light windows. The chancel east window has reticulated tracery. The north chancel aisle has a basement vestry, made possible by the fall in the ground level. The chapel in the main storey has triple cusped east windows and 2 trefoil north windows. The south organ chamber is under an outshut roof, with east rose window and trefoil-headed south windows (a low extension on its east side is a store room).

INTERIOR: Nave arcades, 5-bay on the north side but only 4-bay on the south side on account of the tower, are similar despite being of different dates. They have piers of quatrefoil section, with fillets, and double-chamfered arches. The chancel arch is similar with filleted responds. Nave and aisles have 5-bay, north chapel 3-bay, arched brace roofs. The chancel has a similar 3-bay roof but with cusped arched braces. Walls are plastered. There are raised floorboards below pews. The sanctuary has a mosaic floor.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The octagonal font has a bowl and stem carved as a single piece, with trefoils in panels around the bowl. Benches have moulded ends, and numbers. The screen from north aisle to chapel is a 1914-18 war memorial, with simple tracery lights over a panelled dado. The polygonal wooden pulpit has open Gothic panels, on a stone base. Choir stalls have ends with tracery and quatrefoil blind panels, and open arcaded frontal. The chancel communion rail has panelled balusters with ogee brackets, and incorporating arches. It is late C19 or early C20, but the chapel communion rail of open arcading is mid C19 style and may originally have been in the chancel. The sanctuary reredos comprises Gothic panelling with empty central niche. The dado in north and south sanctuary walls is similar. There are late C19 and early C20 stained-glass windows, including west window of c1911 showing martyrs, Apostles and Old-Testament figures.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: The graveyard has a dense collection of well-carved C19 headstones, and some grander Gothic memorials, especially on the west side.

HISTORY: Built 1853-54 by the Bradford partnership of Mallinson & Healey, the lead architect for which was probably James Mallinson (1819-84). The contractor was B. Walton & Sons, the cost £1360, with £125 grant from the Church Commissioners. The organ chamber, north aisle and north-west porch are later, as neither are shown on a plan of the original church. The church was re-ordered in 1999 when a first floor was added in the north aisle.

SOURCES:
Port, M H., Six Hundred New Churches (1961), 168-69.
Lambeth Palace Library, Incorporated Church Building Society Archives, file 04507.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: Christchurch, Mount Pellon, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is a large mid C19 Gothic-Revival parish church retaining original character and detail.
* The church prominently sited and, with other C19 suburban churches, documents the growth of industrial Halifax and shows how C19 churches were carefully sited to occupy commanding positions in the townscape.

This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Register. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 17 August 2017.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26600448

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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