Christ Church West Green
Overview
Grid reference: TQ 319 894
The best view is from the south as the church is approached from West Green Road. From this point is seen the west end of the nave (for the church is orientated with the chancel facing north east), set behind a triangular garden laid out with rose beds and edged with limes and hawthorns.
Visiting and facilities
Building is open for worship
Building
Ground Plan Description and Dimensions
Ground plan:
Nave of four and a half bays with clerestory, aisles and transepts; chancel with north transeptal organ chamber and south vestry.
Description of Archaeology and History
By Hodson and Whitehead, 1888. The church was preceded by an iron church which had served All Souls Clapton until the permanent church was built there; it was brought to Tottenham in 1884 and used until 1888. A consolidated chapelry was formed for the area in 1889 taken from the parishes of four surrounding churches.
Exterior Description
The best view is from the south as the church is approached from West Green Road. From this point is seen the west end of the nave (for the church is orientated with the chancel facing north east), set behind a triangular garden laid out with rose beds and edged with limes and hawthorns. The west front itself has four windows arranged with a two-light window with a quatrefoil for tracery in the middle and a pair of trefoil-headed lancets each side with an octofoil in the gable above. On the apex stands a louvre boll-cote which is supported on two buttresses flanking the central window and joining into an arch above it.
The flanks of the church are identical in the nave with each bay of the aisles pierced by three-light windows with stone tracery enclosed by a brick arch and hoodmould. The bays are divided by buttresses. In the west bays of of each aisle are porches with arched doorways under cross-gables. The clerestory has three lancets under linked hoodmoulds to each bay, and the bays are here separated by three lancets under pilaster strips. The junction of the chancel is marked by a buttress at clerestory level, but on the south side the aisle roofline continues without a break over the south vestry, an altered window pattern and a doorway being the only external indication of a change. Above the vestry the chancel has a clerestory of three quatrefoils within arched hood moulds. On the north side the pattern is broken by the projecting organ chamber under its own gable like a transept and with three lancets of identical height in the north wall. The east chancel window is of five lights with the outer two on each side paired under a quatrefoil and a big sexfoil forming the chief feature of the tracery. High in the gable are three small stepped lancets to ventilate the roof space, and the corners are supported by angle buttresses terminating in small gablets. The chancel is only about nine inches lower than the nave.
Building Fabric and Features
Stained Glass
c.1900
The east window is of five lights, each with a scene from the Life of Christ, and The Nativity appears above in a sexfoil.
Stained Glass
1898
North aisle I : Christ with the children, 1898, Jones and Willis
Stained Glass
1899
North aisle II : The Angel with the Marys at the Sepulchre by Jones and Willis.
Stained Glass
1901
North aisle III : St. Catherine, St. Etholdreda and St. Barbara, 1901, as a memorial to Queen Victoria, by A.L. Moore of London.
Stained Glass
1901
North aisle IV: St. Ursula, St. Bertha and St. Euphemia as a memorial to Queen Victoria, by A.L. Moore of London.
Stained Glass
c.1895
South aisle I : Christ with the children
Stained Glass
1898
South aisle II : A Miracle of Healing
Stained Glass
1898
South aisle III : Dorcas
Stained Glass
1892
South aisle IV: Christ with Martha and Mary, 1892, bold colouring of a much earlier style; by H.W. Lloyd of Hanley Road, London N.
Stained Glass
Four clerestory lights in chancel, with angels hearing shields with the instruments of the Passion
Interior
Interior Description
The interior is large and brick-faced. The piers of the nave arcade are of stone, alternately round and octagonal. The western bay of cach aisle is taken up by a porch and between these the polished marble font stands under the west windows. The piers have moulded capitals and bases and the arches are of two orders, the outer chamfered and the inner with a roll-moulding along the edge. The clerestory windows stand above a horizontal projecting course which forms their sill, and each stands within its own embrasure. The roof is timber, unboarded, with stout tie-beams and king posts marking each bay, but no carved decoration and hardly even a moulding. At the east end of the south aisle is a doorway to the vestries and at the east end of the north aisle, behind an altar near which the sacrament is reserved, is an arch communicating with the organ chamber.
The chancel arch is tall and wide, with an inner order of stone carried on attached colonettes ringed at the mid-point and supported on conical corbels. The arch is traversed by a handsome iron screen standing above a low marble wall. The chancel floors are of terrazza as in the nave, but with the additional refinement here of edgings of veined black marble to the steps. The south wall has three blind arches to break up a large area of uninterrupted wall, and the north wall has one of these within the sanctuary, the rest of the wall wall being being taken up with a wide arch which contains the front pipes of the organ. The east window, the chancel clerestory windows and all the windows of the nave aisles have stained glass, so that the main sources of natural light are the nave west windows and clerestory. There is no reredos, but the east wall is hung with curtains instead. The chancel roof is a simple variant of the hammerbeam type.
Fixtures and fittings
Altar
The altar is a simple oak table.
Pulpit
c.1890
The pulpit is of stone, on a drum of polished granite, and with four niches containing alabaster figures of the four Evangelists and having alabaster foliage round the top.
Lectern
c.1895
The lectern is a standard brass eagle on a pedestal.
Font (object)
c.1895
The font is of dark mottled marble like serpentine, highly polished, on four colonettes and a square shaft, incised with the usual text.
Organ (object)
The organ is a three-manual instrument by Henry Willis I with thirty three speaking stops and Barker lever action.
Screen
The chancel screen is a fine piece in iron painted black and gold, very much in the style of Blomfield. There are three arches bays cach side of the wider central opening and the gablut above the latter is filled with scrolls round a small figure of Christ the Saviour in a vesica and surmounted by a delicately wrought cross.
Churchyard
Grid reference: TQ 319 894
Burial and War Grave Information
It is unknown whether the building is consecrated.
It is unknown whether the churchyard has been used for burial.
It is unknown whether the churchyard is used for burial.
It is unknown whether the churchyard has war graves.
National Heritage record for England designations
There are no records of National Heritage assets within the curtilage of this site.
Environment
Ancient, Veteran & Notable Trees
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
There are no records of Ancient, Veteran or Notable Trees within the curtilage of this site.
Renewables
| Renewable | Installed |
|---|---|
| Solar PV Panels | No |
| Solar Thermal Panels | No |
| Biomass | No |
| Wind Turbine | No |
| Air Source Heat Pump | No |
| Ground Source Heat Pump | No |
| Ev Charging | No |
Species summary
There are no records of species within the curtilage of this site.
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
'Seek advice' Species
More information on species and action to be taken upon discovery.
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
Further information
Quinquennial Inspections
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