Christ Church, Wharton, traces its origins to an unconsecrated chapel of ease built c.1835 at the instigation of John Furnival, a curate of Davenham.[1] This was the first Anglican religious building in Wharton, and was built to be a challenge to the growth of Methodism in the district.[1]
The chapel was located at Wharton Bridges. Its exact location is unknown, but Wharton Bridges was the original name of the road bridge on Wharton Road, crossing the London and North Western Railway.[2]
When the parish of Wharton was created in 1843, initially as a district of Davenham parish (it was not until 10 March 1860 that Wharton became a separate ecclesiastical parish),[1] the Wharton Bridges chapel was replaced by a new chapel of ease. It was built by James France-France, of Bostock Hall, Bostock, on Crook Lane, at its junction with School Road. The new chapel, called Christ's Church,[3] was consecrated on 26 June 1843 by the Bishop of Chester, John Bird Sumner.[1] A vicarage was built in 1848, formed from two cottages, at a cost of £673 14s.[1]
One service is held on Sundays, a morning service, and a Communion service is held each Wednesday morning. The church supports missionary groups Open Doors,[6]Gideons International,[7] and AICMAR (African Institute for Contemporary Mission and Research).[8]
The church is built in brick with a red sandstone facing and a slate roof. It is a small cruciform ("cross-shaped") building in the
Gothic Revival (Perpendicular) style of Christianchurcharchitecture. At the north-west is a square bell tower, originally surmounted with four slender pinnacles[10] (removed at some time between 1874 and 1892).[11][12] The main entrance to the building is at the foot of the tower. A single bell was installed in the bell tower in the 1849 scheme, but was replaced with a peal of eight tubular bells in 1897, the gift of Mrs Lea of Winsford Lodge, Wharton, in honour of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.[13] The tower clock, made by the Shropshire company of JB Joyce & Co at a cost of £50[1] and installed in 1849, was the gift of saltworks proprietor John Dudley of Wharton Lodge, in memory of his wife, Elizabeth (a Latin inscription on the clock face records the gift).[12][14]
Fittings and furnishings
The church has a number of memorial windows in stained glass, most notable of which are the east window (to Revd John Lothian, died 1859 after being thrown from his horse[1]), and the west window (to Revd John Samuel Bage, died 1873). The north and south transepts contain large metal panels overpainted with the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. The painting is in the Gothic Revival style, and the panels are probably contemporary with the building of the church. The church has had three organs. The first, installed in 1849, was replaced by the second organ, c.1874.[11] This was replaced in 1920[1] by the present organ, the gift of Mrs Marion Newell in memory of her son, Sub-Lt Jack H.M. Newall, killed in action 13 November 1916, on the outskirts of Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre, France, during the Battle of the Ancre.[15] His medals are on display next to the organ.[16] At the west end of the nave is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone to Senior Aircraftsman Ian Shinner, killed in a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) shooting at Roermond, the Netherlands, on May 2, 1988.[17] The interior was lit by gas until electric lights were installed in 1937.[1]
External features
On the approach to the main entrance is a war memorial, an oak crucifix on a stone base erected in 1920 at a cost of £280.[5] It records the names of 78 Wharton parishioners killed in action during World War I. The churchyard contains the war graves of five service personnel of World War I, and four of World War II.[18]
^ abcdefghijklBack For The Future: Christ Church, Wharton, 1843-1993. Pamphlet published by Christ Church, Wharton, on the occasion of the Church's 150th anniversary. 1993.
