Christ Church, Ironville

Christ Church was built by the owners of The Butterley Iron Company in 1851-2, to a design provided by Henry Stevens of Derby. The church was not the first building on the spot, as it replaced a school, roughly half the size of the present building, and this was extended to become the church. A new school was then built across the road to replace it.

Pevsner describes the church as “quite ambitious”. Kelly's Directory of 1932 provides the information that it consists of chancel, seven-bay nave, transepts, south porch, and three-level western tower, with an attached staircase turret. The interior has a rich collection of memorial windows. In the chancel are 3 memorial windows to William Jessop, the founder of the Butterley Company; and in the baptistry, a memorial window and tablet to Francis Wright esq. erected by parishioners in 1873. The south aisle has a stained window placed in 1871 by the Rev. W.E. Littlewood M.A., then vicar, and in the south transept is a memorial window to Elizabeth Sedgwick, erected 1893. There are other memorials to the Rev. John Casson, first vicar of the parish, and to Mrs. Neller, erected in 1902.

Christ Church has no graveyard immediately surrounding the church, but there was a burial ground to the rear, on the other side of the former Canal. This was accessed by means of a wooden footbridge before the Canal was filled in. It belonged to the Church originally, but was adopted by the Local Authority, when they opened a new Cemetery on the opposite side of Bullock Lane.

(Information provided by Janet Kirk/Rosemary Lockie)