CHRIST CHURCH

CHRIST CHURCH, CHRISTCHURCH ROAD

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

1866-7, designed by Hubert Austin (1841-1915). Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1071109
Date first listed:: 04-Jun-1976
List Entry Name:: CHRIST CHURCH
Statutory Address:: CHRIST CHURCH, CHRISTCHURCH ROAD

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Date:: 2006-05-25
Reference:: IOE01/15628/02
Rights:: © Mr D Godden. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1071109
Date first listed:: 04-Jun-1976
List Entry Name:: CHRIST CHURCH
Statutory Address 1:: CHRIST CHURCH, CHRISTCHURCH ROAD

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: CHRIST CHURCH, CHRISTCHURCH ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Kent
District:: Ashford (District Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TR 00855 41739

Details

750/3/169 CHRISTCHURCH ROAD 04-JUN-76 SOUTH ASHFORD (Southwest side) CHRIST CHURCH

II 1866-7, designed by Hubert Austin (1841-1915).

MATERIALS: Uncoursed Kentish ragstone with Bath stone dressings. Internal walls plastered and painted white.

PLAN: Aisled, clerestoried nave, chancel, south porch (which was intended to support a tower), north vestry/organ chamber. Slate roofs.

EXTERIOR: Built in a lancet and Geometrical style of the C13. The side windows are lancets, either paired on the lean-to aisles or single in the clerestory. The east and west window are Geometrical, the west window having four uncusped lights and the east three cusped ones. The projected south-west tower never having been built there is a small bell-turret near the west end. The most distinctive feature is the bold hipped roof on the vestry/organ chamber.

INTERIOR: The interior continues the C13-style architecture of the exterior. Five-bay arcades with round piers and double chamfered arches with a hood-moulding over. Chancel arch of similar type. Arch-braced nave roof with tie-beams and king-posts.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The fixtures are modest as a result of the limited funding and are of standard Victorian type, such as the square-ended seating in the nave and aisles.

HISTORY: Christ Church provided much-needed Anglican church accommodation in rapidly expanding Victorian Ashford. The population of the town tripled after the South-Eastern Railway sited its locomotive works here in 1845 and, although the medieval church was lengthened by a bay in 1860, more accommodation was thought necessary. The vicar of Ashford, the Rev J P Alcock, began fundraising in 1860, but it took until 1864 for matters to move sufficiently for a competition to be held. 48 entries were received and the winner was the young Hubert Austin, an assistant in the office of (later Sir) George Gilbert Scott, the most successful and prolific church architect of his day. Scott allowed Austin to accept the commission and it is thus his first work. In 1867 he went on to work with the Lancaster architect Edward Graham Paley (1823-95) whose partner he became in 1868. Austin was to become one of the greatest church architects of the later C19, recognised, for example, as having 'genius' by Nikolaus Pevsner.

Funding for Christ Church seems to have remained tight and building only took place in 1866-7. The funds were 'almost entirely provided by subscriptions from the shareholders of the South Eastern Railway Company' as it served mainly their workers. Hence Christ Church became known as 'the railwayman's church' (ref. newspaper cutting, 1917). All the seats were free. The cost was £4,219 and the site was given by G Jemmett, lord of the manor.

SOURCES Builder, 22 (1864), 274. Unprovenanced newspaper cutting among parish papers, dealing with the jubilee services in 1917. Incorporated Church Building Society papers, Lambeth Palace Library, file 6268. Kentish Express, 11 May 1867. Pevsner, N, Buildings of England: South Lancashire (1966) 44. Brandwood, G, K, 'Splendour in the North: the Churches of Paley & Austin', in Powerhouses of Provincial Architecture (London, Victorian Society, 2009). Pevsner, N, Buildings of England: South Lancashire (1966) 44.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION Christ Church, Ashford, is designated Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is an imposing building of in 'muscular' mid-Victorian Gothic which adds to the character of the area. * It is the first church by Hubert Austin who was to go on to be one of the greatest late Victorian church-builders. * It has not been altered in any significant way since it was built.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 179891
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.