A Victorian Gothic landmark at the centre of Ealing Broadway and a real survivor (its been bombed a few times!). This watercolour captures Christ the Saviour Church, originally Christ Church, with its Kentish ragstone walls, Bath-stone dressings, steep roof, pinnacles, geometric tracery, and imposing west tower modelled on St Mary's Church at Bloxham in Oxfordshire.
Designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and built between 1850 and 1852, the church was founded as a new parish carved from the ancient parish of St Mary's. Its construction was financed by Rosa Frances Lewis, a wealthy local benefactor who continued supporting the church until her death in 1862.
The church suffered wartime damage but was repaired between 1946 and 1952. In 1951, after the destruction of its daughter church St Saviour's, the two parishes were united and the church received its present dedication: Christ the Saviour.
Interesting facts...
Rosa Frances Lewis was the daughter of William Thomas Lewis, an actor closely associated with Covent Garden Theatre. The church was therefore funded by a family connected with London's theatrical world.
During the Blitz, an incendiary bomb completely destroyed St Saviour's Church nearby on the night of 16 November 1940, leaving only its walls. Christ Church was damaged by the blast of a separate bomb across Ealing Broadway, which blew out most of its stained glass and damaged the roof. For several years, the displaced congregation worshipped in a temporary building known as “Little St Saviour's” in the parish hall.
The present name is a memorial to the destroyed church, not the name the building originally carried. Much of the current stained glass was redesigned after the war by Hugh Easton for the church's centenary in 1952. The west tower was modelled on a church in Oxfordshire rather than on a London landmark, giving Ealing's parish church a surprising architectural connection with rural England.
A 1944 flying bomb caused further serious blast damage, yet the building continued as a place of worship. The church's surviving monuments and memorials preserve traces of the earlier parish that stood here before Scott's ambitious Gothic structure.
Location: New Broadway, Ealing, London W5 2XA
