Summary

A parish church with tower, meeting rooms and hall. Designed by Alfred H Gardner in 1953 and built between 1956 and 1958.

Description

A parish church with tower, meeting rooms and hall. Designed by Alfred H Gardner in 1953 and built between 1956 and 1958.

MATERIALS: the building is principally constructed from brown and orange brick. The church is distinguished by its full-height glazing beneath a lightweight shell roof. The hall features concrete panels and black vitrolite.

PLAN: the church has a roughly rectangular footprint orientated on an east-west axis. It has a three-bay nave with aisles of equal width and a short projecting sanctuary to the west. The church hall is perpendicular to the church, also roughly rectangular and orientated north-south. It consists of a hall and a parallel, two storey range containing meeting rooms. The rectangular plan tower links the south-east corner of the church with the north end of the centre.

DESCRIPTION: the exterior is a modular composition of a squat, brick tower; the body of the church, in which the three equal bays of the nave and aisles are expressed with full-height windows beneath shallow concrete vaults; and a hall and meeting rooms within a two-storey, flat roofed block. The tower features a header pattern within the brickwork and contrasting chequerboard detailing to the belfry. The main entrance to the church is at the base of the tower. It features double doors beneath a porch with restrained Ionic columns and a copper pyramidal roof topped by a sculpture of Christ the Sower by John Skelton. The three bays of the nave feature full-height glazing divided into square panes, and each is inset with two, square dalle de verre panels. Each bay is set beneath a vaulted roof supported by slender external columns. The nave and sanctuary are lit from tall side windows. The liturgical east end is blind with an image of the cross in contrasting brickwork. The road facing elevation of the church hall features six glazed bays with square panes, separated by black vitrolite panels. The floor level of each storey is indicated by courses of large, concrete panels. The brick outer bays contain square windows with concrete dressings to ground and first floor, with smaller rows of windows to the side elevations.

Interior: the main entrance to the tower opens into a lobby with contrasting floor tiles arranged in chequerboard formation. It contains a staircase with concrete treads and a slender, metal handrail. The lobby opens into the nave of the church through glazed and panelled doors. The nave and aisles are of equal width beneath a vaulted ceiling, made from fibrous plaster decorated with chequered relief and supported on slender, purple columns. The timber pews face the sanctuary in four rows and form a unified ensemble with the choir stalls, kneelers, alter table, pulpit and organ console. The floor features marbled tiles laid in a square pattern. The interior walls are of exposed brick while the chequered motif is repeated using timber panels and purple acoustic tiles. The sanctuary is at the liturgical east end of the church and incorporates a timber cross and carved figures by John Skelton set into a chequerboard reredos. To the left of the sanctuary is the organ which features timber panels with square openings to the organ pipes. To the right of the sanctuary is a raised, timber pulpit which features a panelled base, containing further carved figures by Skelton, below a circular, sounding board with chequered motif. The rear wall features diagonally-set, purple tiles inset with stylised gold stars. Each glazed bay features two square panels of thick stained glass, 22 in total, set in concrete and illustrating the life of Christ, by Pierre Fourmaintraux. There is a small font at the liturgical west end in polished stone or concrete. The light fittings are in the form of unglazed lanterns, some of which contain suspended celestial figures, likely also by Skelton.

The church hall has a sprung floor and a lamella truss roof. It features full height brick piers between bays of glazing at ground floor level, with square clerestory lights above. At the south end of the hall is a stage which features slender fluted columns and an angled, chequerboard shell of contrasting timber panels.

History

The Festival of Britain took place between May and September 1951 and was a nationwide celebration of British design, technology, industry, architecture, science and the arts. The Festival marked the centenary of the Great Exhibition and aimed to engender a sense of national pride and optimism for the country’s recovery after the Second World War. At the heart of the Festival was a purpose-built site on London’s South Bank, visited by some 8.5 million people, which included the Royal Festival Hall (Grade I), the Festival Gardens in Battersea Park (Grade II*) and a suite of pavilions, cafés and sculptures. Festival events were organised by communities across the country, while the Royal Navy vessel, Campania, was converted into the Festival’s ‘Sea Travelling Exhibition’. The Festival’s legacy was a new design aesthetic – Modernist, joyful, and experimental – dubbed ‘Festival Style’. Its influence was felt throughout the 1950s in the design of New Towns, offices, coffee bars and the rebuilding of city centres.

Coventry was a leader in the process of renewal having been devastated during the war. The original Christ Church on New Union Street was one of many buildings in the city centre that suffered bomb damage. Incredibly, its medieval tower, one of Coventry’s ‘Three Spires’, survived a raid on 10th April 1941 but the rest of the church was destroyed. Rather than reconstructing the church on the same site, in the early 1950s it was decided to build a new Christ Church in the newly formed parish of Cheylesmore, a few miles south of the city centre. The architect Alfred H Gardner, on the recommendation of Bishop Gorton, was commissioned to design the new church. Gardner is known to have built other places of worship, including St Stephen’s Church, Canley (1955), and Friends’ Meeting Houses in Coventry (1953) and his native Leicester (1955), though it appears that the scale and opulence of his work at Christ Church was never repeated.

The concept for the church is said to have been derived from one seen by Gardner at the Festival of Britain exhibition, with the hanging ‘birdcage’ light fittings appearing to have been inspired by the Lion and Unicorn Pavilion designed by R D Russell and Robert Goodden. The extensive interior decoration includes wheels and ribbons representative of Coventry industries. The sculpture of Christ the Sower above the porch, the internal woodcarving and clock are by the artist John Skelton, a prolific sculptor and engraver whose work includes the Grade II listed sculpture ‘The Symbol of Discovery’ in Chichester (1963), as well as contributions to churches across the country. French glass artist Pierre Fourmaintraux created the stained glass windows which are an early example of the use of the dalle de verre in Britain – a technique where coloured glass is mounted in concrete.

The building was funded by the War Damage Commission, at a cost of £79,750 and the complex of church, tower, church offices and hall, open vestibule, vicarage and caretaker’s house, was built in two phases between 1954 and 1958. The church was consecrated by Bishop Cuthbert Bardsley in March 1958. The Architects’ Journal described it as ‘Pleasure Gardens pastiche’ yet preferred it to more `serious’ churches in Coventry by Basil Spence and Richard Twentyman for giving `the most satisfying effect of enclosed space ... only in Gardner’s church did the space around the altar table give a feeling of community.’ For Kenneth Powell, writing in the Weekend Telegraph, 22 February 1997, its `wood veneer reredos, fancifully painted angels and the extraordinary bent metal light fittings make the building a rare unchanged period piece.

Reasons for Listing

Christ Church, Coventry is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a high-quality example of post-war church building by the architect, Alfred H Gardner;

* for the exceptional survival and quality of its unusually vibrant scheme of interior decoration, incorporating a unified sculptural scheme by John Skelton and an early example of the dalle de verre stained glass technique by Pierre Fourmaintraux.

Historic interest:

* as a rare example of a church directly inspired by the design aesthetic that developed from the Festival of Britain of 1951;

* as a striking example of post-war church rebuilding, symbolising the ambition of Coventry’s regeneration;

* for illustrating a period that marked a shift towards joyful, community worship;

Group value:

* as a unified complex of buildings, each incorporating the decorative chequerboard theme.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26656730

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.

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