Christ Church, Holloway, halfway up a hill on the east side of the Derwent Valley near Matlock Bath, was designed by the Derby architect Percy Heylyn Currey (1864-1942) and consecrated in 1903.  It marks the tipping point between nineteenth-century and twentieth-century British architecture. 

Christ Church was sponsored by John Marsden-Smedley (1868-1959), owner of Lea Mills in the valley below Holloway, on land donated by the Nightingale family of Lea Hurst.  It was intended as the principal church in the newly established parish of Dethick, Lea and Holloway, and was completed in 1903 at a cost of £4,669.  The tower was added in 1911 in memory of William Walker of Holloway.

The design is solid and elegant in its proportion and detail, inside and out, less obviously displaying arts and crafts than the nearby Chapel of St John the Baptist, Matlock Bath, designed by Guy Dawber (1861-1938), but expressing the beauty of Arts & Craft architecture when the richness of High Victorian Gothic became softened by the desire for handcrafted, sensual designs advocated by, among others, John Ruskin (1819-1900) and William Morris (1834-1896).

Both buildings are listed Grade II*.  The Matlock Bath chapel is a gem, built on a steep slope in brick, irregular in form and embellished with exquisite fittings and furniture.  Christ Church, also on a hillside, is more solid, characterised by powerful masonry that embraces the simple spaces of nave, chancel and sanctuary.    Its decorative features stand out from a context of plain surfaces.  The reredos, font, pulpit, lectern and credence table, communion rail and pews are all designed by Percy Currey.  The organ by Andrews of Bradford was installed in 1903;  its action was modernised in 1988.

Christ Church is carefully lit by natural light from the south.  The only stained glass is the east window, a memorial to George Futvoye Marsden Smedley (1897-1916), killed in the Battle of the Somme.  It was designed by Louis Davis (1866-1941), “the last of the pre-Raphaelites”, who also did the east window of the Matlock Bath chapel. 

All the Holloway men who gave their lives in the Great War are prominently commemorated by seventeen rectangular gritstone tablets carrying incised inscriptions around the walls of the nave in gilded letters on a red background.  Photos of the seventeen individual tablets can be found at www.crichparish-ww1.co.uk/ww1webpages/christchurchplaques.html.

I visited the building with the Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust and listened to a detailed account of the history of the parish and the building by the local historian Dennis Brook, who pointed out that the four successive proprietors called John Smedley inclined towards Nonconformity but were generous to Protestant congregations in the locality.  He also drew on detailed research in the John Smedley company archive to portray a vigorous community spirit that drove the church’s activities from the outset.

It’s worth seeking out Christ Church and St John the Baptist’s Chapel when they’re open.  They’re only a few miles apart, either side of Sir Richard Arkwright’s Cromford.  Christ Church is part of the United Benefice of Matlock, Dethick, Lea and Holloway.  St John the Baptist is cared for by the Friends of Friendless Churches.