Description

GOUDHURST CHURCH ROAD
TQ 73 NW (east side)

Kilndown
5/133 Christ Church
26.9.80
GV I
Parish church. 1839-41, Anthony Salvin, architect, embellished and altered by
Alexander Roos for A J Beresford Hope, 1840-45. Sandstone with slate roof.
Chancel, nave and west tower, with south eastern vestry. A simple buttressed box,
with pierced parapet, stair vice to south, with 2 stage western tower, with corner
buttresses, broach spire with lucarnes and paired lancet belfry openings. Small
rose window over arched and hooded western door enriched with ironwork of German
design. Lancet fenestration throughout. Marshal Viscount Beresford commissioned
the church with hammerbeam roof, from Salvin; his stepson Beresford-Hope began to
alter it from 1840 in accordance with Ecclesiological principals using many
notable architects and craftsmen. The chancel especially became a showpiece of
the Camden Society/Ecclesiologist group, separated from nave only by the screen,
designed by R C Carpenter, of 7 open traceried and ogeed panels either side of
arched doubled doors, with linenfold lower panels and embattled top beam, the
whole painted and heavily enriched. The hammer-beam ends in the chanel have
carved angels to distinguish them from the nave. Floor and lower walls of chancel
with patterned tiles and inscriptions. Stone altar by Salvin, based on William of
Wykeham's tomb in Winchester Cathedral. Trelobed piscina, enriched cusped
sedilia, richly decorated door to vestry. Reredos of 1869, designed by W Slater,
carved by J F Redfern, the Crucifiction with the Virgin, Saints and Apostles.
Stalls, with poppyheads, figures and carved panels of the stages of the cross,
designed by Carpenter and executed, like the screen by a local, John Thomas Corona
Lucis designed by Butterfield. Also by Butterfield the brass lectern and the
pulpit, entered from the vestry, based on that at Beaulieu Abbey, projecting from
the wall on 4 inclined shafts. Organ, first installed 1840, moved to its present
position 1860 and enlarged 1911, a good example, the decorative panelling and
enrichment effecting that elsewhere in the church. Nave walls and ceiling origin-
ally painted, but now plastered and painted over. Painted enrichment throughout
by A Roos and T Willerneuh. Glass throughout by Franz Eggert of the Royal Works
at Munich, a series of Saints, dated 1840. Font with buttressed shaft and pyra-
midal cap. On the wall over it a carved panel of St George and the Dragon, said
to be German C16, but looking more like a C19 copy. The rear of the nave screened
off by intarsia panels, designed by Clement Heaton, 1874-75 with 8 saints, 1881
Ecclesia and Synagoga. The woods came from Bedgebury Estate, the panels tradi-
tionally were crafted at Bedgebury, made for Trinity College Cambridge, removed
here 1974. (See BOE, Kent I, 1980, 352-3; see also Church Guide).

Listing NGR: TQ7006035187

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Christ Church, Kilndown at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17524689

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments