Christ Church, Wharton

Christ Church stands at the edge of Winsford in Cheshire, a small brick building with red sandstone facing and a slate roof. Its cross-shaped plan and Gothic Revival details mark it out from the surrounding streets. A square bell tower rises at the north-west corner, its clock and peal of tubular bells gifts from local people. The main door opens at the foot of the tower, leading into a nave and chancel enlarged in the 19th century. Two transepts were formed from the original chapel of ease built in 1835. The church’s history is tied to the growth of Wharton and the challenge to Methodism in the 1830s. John Furnival, a curate from Davenham, promoted the first chapel, and later James France-France constructed the larger building in 1843. Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and the Archbishop of Canterbury contributed funds for enlargement in 1849. The chancel was extended in 1913, and the interior preserves memorials to local clergy and war dead. Inside, stained-glass windows remember two former vicars, while metal panels bear the Lord’s Prayer and Ten Commandments. The present organ was given in memory of a young officer killed in 1916, and his medals sit beside it. A Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone marks an airman killed in the Netherlands in 1988. Outside, an oak crucifix on a stone base lists seventy-eight parishioners lost in the First World War.