Christ Church Southgate Parish Church

Christ Church, Southgate, in the London Borough of Enfield, is a Victorian parish church of national importance for one extraordinary reason: it houses the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite stained glass in London, a dazzling array of windows by William Morris and the greatest artists of his circle. A Grade II* listed building designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, the foremost church architect of the Victorian age, it is a treasure-house of nineteenth-century art as well as a living and inclusive parish church with a distinguished musical tradition. To step inside Christ Church is to be surrounded by the glowing colour and poetic imagination of the Pre-Raphaelite movement at its height.

The church has its roots in a much older foundation. In 1615 Sir John Weld, the owner of the Arnos Grove estate, established the Weld Chapel just to the west of the present church, where local people were allowed to worship. By the nineteenth century this chapel had become too small and dilapidated for the growing community, and the Reverend James Baird, a minister of the Weld Chapel who had married into the Walker family — the owners of Arnos Grove house — saw the need for a new church. The Walker family donated the land, and the great architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, the designer of the Albert Memorial, St Pancras station and countless churches, was commissioned to build Christ Church. It was consecrated on 17 July 1862 by John Jackson, then Bishop of Lincoln and later Bishop of London. The old Weld Chapel was demolished the following year, and its site is still marked in the old churchyard outside the west door of the church — a quiet link to the worship that had gone before.

The glory of Christ Church is its stained glass. The church holds the largest collection in London of windows by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Company — later the celebrated Morris & Co — with work ranging from 1861 to 1913. The windows include designs by the supreme artists of the Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts movements: Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, Philip Webb, John Henry Dearle, and William Morris himself. Among the most celebrated is the Faith and Hope window in the nave, designed by Burne-Jones and installed in memory of Letitia Catherine Hayes, the sister of the great imperial statesman John Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence, who lived at Southgate House. To have such a concentration of Pre-Raphaelite glass in a single church is remarkable, and it makes Christ Church a place of pilgrimage for lovers of Victorian art.

The church is rich in other fine works of art too. The great east window, by the distinguished firm of Clayton & Bell, was installed in 1862 in memory of Vincent Figgins the younger, who had carried on the work of his father, the famous type-founder; and other windows by Clayton & Bell adorn the building. The reredos behind the altar, installed in 1868, is a fine mosaic by the Venetian master Antonio Salviati depicting the Last Supper — its design by John Clayton of Clayton & Bell, and nearly identical to the Salviati reredos installed a year earlier in Westminster Abbey. Together with the Pre-Raphaelite glass, these make the interior of Christ Church one of the most artistically distinguished of any Victorian church in London.

The church has also long been renowned for its music. The choir of Christ Church Southgate has existed since the very first service held in the church, when it was augmented by choristers from St Paul's Cathedral, and it has maintained a high standard ever since. Originally a choir of men and boys, it is now a mixed choir of adults and younger members, and its notable alumni include the acclaimed organist and choral conductor Martin Neary. The choir sings for the Parish Eucharist every Sunday morning and for Choral Evensong each Sunday evening, makes regular recordings, and tours to cathedrals around the United Kingdom and Europe — carrying the music of Christ Church far beyond Southgate.

Christ Church describes itself as a "liberal catholic Church of England parish", and in 2014 it registered as an Inclusive Church, continuing a tradition of welcome and engagement. The burial vault of the Walker family of Southgate, the benefactors who gave the land for the church, lies in the churchyard near the west door, a reminder of the family whose generosity made the building possible.

The church stands on Waterfall Road in Southgate, a leafy suburb in the north of London, in the borough of Enfield. Nearby is the famous Arnos Grove Underground station, a masterpiece of 1930s design by Charles Holden, along with the beautiful Grovelands Park with its lake and Regency mansion, the green spaces and the New River walk, and the historic village atmosphere that Southgate still retains, with the open countryside of the Green Belt and the wider attractions of north London within easy reach.

From the seventeenth-century Weld Chapel, through the building of Christ Church by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1862, to its incomparable collection of Pre-Raphaelite glass by Morris, Burne-Jones and Rossetti, its Salviati mosaic reredos and its celebrated choir, Christ Church Southgate gathers the artistry and faith of the Victorian age into one building. A Grade II* listed church and a living, inclusive parish, it remains both a working church and one of the great treasure-houses of Pre-Raphaelite art in London — a place where the colour and poetry of William Morris and his circle still glow above the worship of the people of Southgate.