Christ Church

Details

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

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

169483

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Christ Church Church Guide, ()
Newman, J, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald, (1980), 352-3

End of official list entry

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