Christ Church Including Attached Vestry and Verger's House

CHRIST CHURCH INCLUDING ATTACHED VESTRY AND VERGER'S HOUSE, RYHOPE ROAD

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Overview

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II
List Entry Number:
1209657
Date first listed:
08-May-1950
List Entry Name:
Christ Church Including Attached Vestry and Verger's House
Statutory Address:
CHRIST CHURCH INCLUDING ATTACHED VESTRY AND VERGER'S HOUSE, RYHOPE ROAD
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Date:
2001-09-02
Reference:
IOE01/03868/09
Rights:
© Mr D.H. Bottoms. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II
List Entry Number:
1209657
Date first listed:
08-May-1950
Date of most recent amendment:
17-Oct-1994
List Entry Name:
Christ Church Including Attached Vestry and Verger's House
Statutory Address 1:
CHRIST CHURCH INCLUDING ATTACHED VESTRY AND VERGER'S HOUSE, RYHOPE ROAD

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

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

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

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

Location

Statutory Address:
CHRIST CHURCH INCLUDING ATTACHED VESTRY AND VERGER'S HOUSE, RYHOPE ROAD

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

District:
Sunderland (Metropolitan Authority)
Parish:
Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:
NZ 39765 56019

Details

SUNDERLAND

NZ3956SE RYHOPE ROAD 920-1/22/187 (West side) 08/05/50 Christ Church including attached vestry and verger's house (Formerly Listed as: RYHOPE ROAD (West side) Christ Church)

GV II

Parish church. 1862-64. By James Murray of Coventry; attached vestry and verger's house c1877 by JC Cundall of Leamington. Snecked rock-faced limestone with ashlar plinth and dressings of coarse-grained sandstone; roof pale grey slate, perhaps Lakeland, with stone copings; stone spire. Chancel with S chapel and NE tower, aisled nave with transepts and N porch, and vestry and cottage attached to W end of S aisle. Style of c1300 with cusped lancets, roundels and geometric tracery. EXTERIOR: large E gable has 5-light window with big cinquefoil under dripmould; sill string continues round angle buttresss with gabled niches; gabled S chancel chapel has 3-light window. 3-stage tower has roll-moulded arch on nookshafts to E door under crocketed ogee canopy, 2 slender lancets in tall second stage, and half-octagonal N stair turret with lancets and hipped roof; belfry stage has corner shafts and symbols of Evangelists above 2-light louvred openings; corbel table with angle gargoyles; high broach spire with lucarnes and angle spirelets. Gabled transepts have 3 lancets below roundel. Similar roundels paired in clerestory between shallow buttresses; 3-light aisle windows; head-stopped dripmould over moulded arch on nookshafts with crocket capitals in gabled north porch. Sill strings and alternate-block jambs to openings. Short corridor from NW has lancets and leads to vestry with one high storey, 5 mullion windows and high-pitched roof; similar window on each floor of attached cottage with gable to front, the upper an attic in the gable; set-back left square stair tower has boarded door in double-chamfered arch, and coped set-backs reducing it to octagonal turret with conical roof; tall chimney at rear of cottage roof. INTERIOR of church 5-bay arcade has double-chamfered arches on round piers with crocket capitals; similar chancel arch on shafts; scissor-braced roof on corbelled wall-posts. Chancel has shallow N recess, S organ chamber, carved stone reredos. Perpendicular chancel screen; Gothic stone pulpit with green marble shafts stands on 6 piers; alabaster font in Romanesque style. High quality glass includes E window of 1864 by Morris & Co., all scenes except Sermon on the Mount by Morris & Burne Jones; W window and transepts have c1866 glass in bright primary colours; N aisle, E-W, windows signed Alex Gibb & Co., 109 Bloomsbury, London; Atkinson Bros, Newcastle; C Baguley, Newcastle; S aisle also fine glass including the second by Kempe, commemorating Charles Kitson d.1881, and the first c1882. The site was bought from Edward Backhouse of Ashburne House (qv), who insisted there should be a good spire. Among wealthy men who contributed to the cost of building was James Hartley, glassmaker. (Buildings of England: Pevsner (revised Williamson): County Durham: Harmondsworth: 1983-: 451; Corfe T and Milburn G: Buildings and Beliefs: Sunderland: 1984-: 14).

Listing NGR: NZ3976556019

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:
391565
Legacy System:
LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Corfe, T, Milburn, G, Buildings and Beliefs, (1984), 14
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: County Durham, (1983), 451

Legal

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

Ordnance survey map of Christ Church Including Attached Vestry and Verger's House

Map

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 09-Jun-2026 at 09:46:14.

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End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

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