Description

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

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26504714

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6