Christ Church is an

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church building serving a

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

on the southern side of

Warminster Warminster () is an ancient market town with a nearby garrison, and civil parish in south west Wiltshire, England, on the western edge of Salisbury Plain. The parish had a population of about 17,000 in 2011. The 11th-century Minster Church of S ...

, Wiltshire, England.

History

The church was built in 1830–31 to the designs of John Leachman, at the instigation of William Dalby, vicar of the parish church of

St Denys St Denys is a partially riverside district of Southampton, England, centred north north-east of the city centre facing variously Bitterne Park and quay across the River Itchen estuary. The river is here spanned in the mid-east extreme of t ...

, as a

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently. Often a chapel of ea ...

to serve what was then Warminster Common. It was part-funded by the

Church Building Commission A Commissioners' church, also known as a Waterloo church and Million Act church, is an Anglican church in the United Kingdom built with money voted by Parliament as a result of the Church Building Acts of 1818 and 1824. The 1818 Act supplied ...

and had a large nave with a capacity, including a gallery, of 882. The church is built in yellow brick with limestone dressings; the west tower has pinnacles described by

Pevsner Pevsner or Pevzner is a Jewish surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Aihud Pevsner (1925–2018), American physicist * Antoine Pevsner (1886–1962), Russian sculptor, brother of Naum Gabo * David Pevsner, American actor, singer, dan ...

as tall and heavy. In 1871 the church was expanded with the addition of the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

and

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

T.H. Wyatt Thomas Henry Wyatt (9 May 1807 – 5 August 1880) was an Anglo-Irish architect. He had a prolific and distinguished career, being elected President of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1870–73 and being awarded its Royal Gold Medal for A ...

. In 1881 the ceiling of the nave, which was becoming unstable, was replaced with wooden beams and pillars to form arcades, and the balcony or gallery was removed. The building was recorded as

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

in 1952. During the late 1960s an attempt was made to modernise the worship in the church, and a nave altar was built. This was a controversial move and led, eventually, to a

consistory court A consistory court is a type of ecclesiastical court, especially within the Church of England where they were originally established pursuant to a charter of King William the Conqueror, and still exist today, although since about the middle of th ...

. The vicar wanted to symbolically bring the worship of the church to a more central place in the church. However, this move divided the church and a number of the congregation, and those outside the congregation complained that there had been no consultation. Eventually a parishioner appealed to an ecclesiastical consistory court. The case was lost by the vicar and church wardens as the court found that insufficient consultation about the change had occurred. Although the altar was not removed, the affair caused a rift in the church and a number of people felt strongly enough to move to worship elsewhere. In 2004 a major redevelopment of Christ Church began with the complete reordering of the worship space, the addition of a raised dais, the removal of the nave altar and pews, and a new lobby. The second phase of the development project included the utilisation of the mezzanine floor area above the lobby of the church. Creating meeting rooms and more functional space, this work was completed in 2014.

Parish

At first a chapel of ease within the parish of

, in 1838 a district was assigned to Christ Church which included the Common, Boreham and part of the town. It gained its own parish in 1863, and at the same time Boreham was returned to Warminster parish. There were boundary changes affecting the parishes of Warminster, Christ Church,

Bishopstrow Bishopstrow is a small village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, on the southeastern edge of the town of Warminster. The village is about from the town centre, south of the old Warminster to Salisbury road, formerly the A36, now the B3414. ...

and Boyton in 1956, and again involving

Norton Bavant Norton Bavant is a small village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, southeast of Warminster. Geography The village is on the River Wylye and at the edge of Salisbury Plain. To the north lies Scratchbury and Cotley Hills Site of Special S ...

and

Upton Scudamore Upton Scudamore is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The village lies about north of the town of Warminster and about the same distance south of Westbury. The parish includes the hamlet of Halfway. The village occupies a ridge w ...

in 1959; today the parish covers a segment of the southern half of Warminster, and extends southwest into part of the

Longleat Longleat is an English stately home and the seat of the Marquesses of Bath. A leading and early example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, it is adjacent to the village of Horningsham and near the towns of Warminster and Westbury in Wiltshire, ...

estate.

List of vicars

References

{{Commons category Warminster, Christ Church Warminster Churches completed in 1830 19th-century Church of England church buildings 1830 establishments in England