Christ Church

Details

BRISTOL

ST5773SW CLIFTON DOWN ROAD, Clifton 901-1/8/760 (South side) 08/01/59 Christ Church (Formerly Listed as: CLIFTON DOWN ROAD (East side) Church of Christchurch)

II*

Church. 1841. By C Dyer. Steeple 1859 by J Norton, aisles 1885 by WC Basset-Smith. Limestone ashlar on a Pennant ashlar plinth, slate roof and leaded porches. Aisled, cruciform plan with an apse, SE vestry and SW steeple. Early English Gothic Revival style. An octagonal apse with paired lancets in a panel between a sill mould, shallow pilasters on the angles and a trefoil arcade below the parapet; the vestry has a canted bayed end with a roll-topped parapet, small lancets to each face and a group of 3 to the S, beside a small doorway with a shoulder arch; the ends of the aisles have a pair of lancets, and a large broached pinnacle on the angle with the nave gable with thin gableted trefoil arches on shafts to each side, and a pyramidal top. The N transept is flanked by octagonal buttress towers with blind, gabled lancets to 4 sides, and spirelet tops with gableted openings to the sides; the gabled porch has an arched doorway with a trefoil between it and the gable hood above, flanked by 3 lancets with shafts and moulded capitals, 2 to the right and 1 to the left; above a drip mould is an arcade of 5 tall lancets with banded shafts, with a 12-spoke wheel window below the parapet and finial. N aisle of 4 bays, each with an arcade of paired lancet windows with narrower blind ones either side, on banded shafts, separated by weathered buttresses rising through a roll-topped parapet; the porch at the W end has a shouldered gable with blind lancets flanking the doorway which has stepped, pointed panels in the tympanum, and a blind lancet flanked by trefoils above; the clerestory runs for 4 bays of the nave and returns for one bay of the transept, each an arcade of 5 lancets, the side and central ones blind, separated by very shallow buttresses to a weathered top above the parapet. The S transept differs from the N in having an arcade of 5 stepped lancets, with a final blind pair at the ends, to the gable. Tall W porch with an arched doorway of 2 orders, a trefoil panel above and side pinnacles with 4 slender shafts; inside is a cinquefoil-arched doorway with a continuous hood of undercut roll moulding; along the outsides is a blind arcade of 5 trefoil-headed arches, which runs into a further arcade of 5 lancets along the front. The W end is lit by 3 tall stepped lancets, separated by blind lancet panels of uniform height, on banded shafts, with above, a stepped arcade like the S transept. The 5-stage tower and broach spire has set-back buttresses with graded weatherings, and a weathered plinth; the W doorway has a depressed trefoil arch within a splayed opening of 3 orders, with 2 sub-orders with Purbeck marble shafts, and a 2-leaf door with scrolled strap hinges; the middle 3 stages have blind arcades of 3 lancets, with undercut trefoil heads to the lower stage, a single narrow light to the second, and 2 such windows on the third; tall belfry stage has 3 louvred lancets of 3 orders on banded shafts separated by a dogtooth moulding, set below an arcaded top. The corners of the tower are chamfered into the battered plinths of the spire pinnacles, which are like those on the W porch; in between are tall, gabled 2-light lucarnes to the ribbed octagonal spire, with its ball finial. INTERIOR: the sides of the apse have arcades of 3 trefoil-arched niches, and banded shafts extend up the corners to a ribbed vault; a tall chancel arch of 3 attached shafts, flanked by narrower arches with transoms and open tracery tops; the crossing arches have 5 attached shafts including 2 Purbeck marble ones, and pierced quatrefoils either side at the top; a 4-bay nave arcade of cluster columns with 4 shafts and slim Purbeck shafts in between; the arch-braced roof is carried down below the clerestory sill band by triple attached shafts to corbels, and the aisle roofs are similary supported. (Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 293; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 389).

Listing NGR: ST5703573365

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

379218

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol, (1958), 389
Gomme, A H, Jenner, M, Little, B D G, Bristol, An Architectural History, (1979), 293

End of official list entry

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