The church is a Grade II listed building
and the entry at the English Heritage website (visit
link) tells us:
"Church. 1850-1. Ferrey. Rubble and
ashlar; slate roof. Aisled, with north-east tower and ashlar broach spire; no
clerestory. Nave and aisles under separate roofs. Geometrical Gothic style. Four
bay nave, aisles with 2-light windows and short buttresses. Main entrance
through north porch. Five-light east window. Interior not
inspected."
The British History website (visit
link) gives more information:
"This conventional Gothic Revival
church was built in 1850–1, to designs by Benjamin Ferrey.
Christ Church began as a daughter
church to St. Mary Abbots, which from 1842 was ministered to by John Sinclair.
Unlike other local Anglican churches, it never acquired its own district and has
always remained under the parish church's aegis. The idea of building a 'chapel
of ease' in this area probably goes back to the mid 1840s, when development on
H. L. Vallotton's estate in Kensington New Town was in full spate. By 1848, at
any rate, 'A Constant Reader' complained to The Builder that though Vallotton
had given a site in Victoria Road, 'they seem to sleep over it'. Two years
later, another correspondent urged The Builder to stir up the building committee
of 'this long-talked of new church', for which subscriptions had been for some
time solicited.
The reasons for the delay do not
appear, nor do we know details of the arrangements for the design of the church.
However, it seems that more than one architect was approached, since
illustrations survive showing a church by W. B. Moffatt, described as 'Christ
Church, about to be erected at Kensington'. Though different in some stylistic
features, this design had a similar plan to the church afterwards built in
Victoria Road, with a tower in the unusual north-east position and an entrance
from a north-west porch. For whatever reason, Moffatt failed to secure the
commission, and his fellow ecclesiologist Benjamin Ferrey was chosen as
architect instead. In May 1850 the site was finally conveyed by Vallotton, and
Ferrey's design was put out to tender. The well-known church builder George
Myers of Lambeth won with a bid of £3,540 and work started immediately. The
foundation stone was laid on 24 July 1850 and the church was consecrated by
Bishop Blomfield on 23 July 1851. The total cost of building appears to have
amounted to £5,000 and 700–800 sittings were provided, of which only about 100
were free.
Ferrey's design was in a
respectable, humdrum SecondPointed Gothic, with the separate nave, aisles and
chancel expected by church-building orthodoxies of the moment. The materials
used were Kentish ragstone with dressings of Bath stone. The church was peculiar
only in having aisles with their own pitched roofs and in the position of the
north-east tower and broach spire. Probably using the architect's own
information. The Ecclesiologist published a full report which commented
knowingly on its 'remarkable resemblance, though with some improvements' to
Ferrey's previous St. Mary's, Barnstaple (1846).
In architectural character, Christ
Church remains now much as it was when first built. The nave arcade is of five
bays, with plastered walling above and elsewhere throughout the church. The nave
and chancel roofs are both of open timber and run through at a single pitch. The
aisles are ample and the seating entirely immerses the bases of the nave piers.
This was supplemented originally by a west gallery across the breadth of the
nave and aisles. The tracery of the windows is quite conventional; originally
the west window of the nave had three lights only. Formerly there was quiet
Minton tiling throughout the church, while on the sanctuary floor could be found
'a richly embroidered carpet, worked by ladies, of a very fair design'. Between
the choir and tower came 'a good oak parclose'; behind it was a vestry with the
organ above. There were stalls with poppyheads, an altar of oak, a stone pulpit
(no doubt the present one shown in, but then on the south side of the chancel
arch), but no font. Nor was there any pictorial stained glass at the time of
consecration. Instead 'all the windows are filled with Powell's quarries, and
have colour in the heads and borders'; some of these lights
survive.
'Considerable decorations in
polychrome are in contemplation for the chancel', announced The Ecclesiologist
in 1851. Whether these were carried out we do not know, as the next mention of
change at Christ Church comes thirty years later, in 1881, when Edmund B.
Ferrey, son of the original architect, was called in to lighten the nave, which
had no clerestory, by means of adding dormers in the roof. In the same year the
east window was stained and a stone reredos installed. Then in 1896–7 the
younger Ferrey added a west porch, removed the west gallery, enlarged the window
above and installed a font close to the north door. <An elaborate scheme for
decorating the walls above and around the nave arcades, rebuilding the
clerestory and decorating the roof, was proposed by the architect, artist and
decorator T. R. Spence in the early 1890s. It was not executed but is
illustrated in The Magazine of Art, 1903.>
No further modifications of
importance seem to have taken place till 1914, when during the short-lived
ministry of the Reverend Harry Pearson the chancel acquired some fittings of
greater dignity. These included the present reredos (by James Powell and Sons),
a low chancel screen and stalls (by Heaton, Butler and Bayne), and altar rails
and a mosaic sanctuary pavement (designed by J. Arthur Reeve and carried out by
Robert Davison). The chancel was further embellished in 1923–4 with a new cross
and candlesticks (by Omar Ramsden) and a new east window by Powells to replace
the old one installed in 1881. In 1927 a new choir vestry was added in the
south-east corner of the church. In 1941 the tip of the spire had to be taken
down following blast damage. Subsequent changes include a south altar and
reredos of 1961.
With the exception of a naturalistic
Victorian window at the east end of the south aisle (said to be after Sir Joshua
Reynolds), and a west window in late Pre-Raphaelite taste, the stained glass is
of no special interest. There are however some pleasing memorials, notably a
bas-relief to Charlotte Athanass Stewart (d. 1860) and a credence table with
attached brass plaques in memory of Amelia Ward (d. 1888). In the south aisle is
a plaster cast of a bust of the founder of the church and Vicar of Kensington,
John Sinclair."
The church's website (visit link)
advises of Sunday services:
"To serve the variety of people in
Kensington, Christ Church plans to offer a number of services that cater for
different tastes and traditions. We hope to reflect a diversity of culture, yet
sharing a unity of purpose, gathering together each week to sing God’s praises
and listen to God’s Word, to encourage and serve one another, and to pray for
our world and our needs.
Our main Sunday service is at 11am,
at which there is an outstanding children’s programme. We also have an 8.30am
service, which is a Book of Common Prayer Service of the Lords Supper. We hope,
early in 2012, to launch a contemporary evening service aimed particularly at
students and young people who live in the area.
We are aware that we are very
ordinary people with lots to learn and yet we have an extraordinary God and so
we welcome everyone, whoever you are, wherever you have been, and whatever your
previous Christian experience."