Category:Christ's College Chapel

The Christ's College Chapel is part of Christ's College at 33 Rolleston Ave, Christchurch. New Zealand Historic Places Trust Category I; register number: 3277

Christ's College Chapel, Christchurch 

church building in Christchurch, New Zealand  image   image of interior
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Instance of	church building
Location	Christchurch City, Canterbury Region, New Zealand
Architectural style	Gothic Revival
Architect	Robert Speechly
Heritage designation	Heritage New Zealand Category 1 historic place listing (1985–)
Inception	1867
43° 31′ 49.8″ S, 172° 37′ 35.4″ E
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It was built in 1867 to a plan by Robert Speechly (1840–1884). Speechly arrived in Christchurch in 1864 having been appointed supervisory architect of the ChristChurch Cathedral. However, lack of money halted construction on the cathedral shortly after the foundations were laid in late 1865. Speechly then spent the remainder of his four-year contract in New Zealand acting as architect to the Anglican Church Property Trustees and supervising all buildings undertaken by them. As the Anglican Church architect, Speechly was a logical choice as the designer of the chapel for Christ's College, which had always been closely associated with the Anglican Church. The chapel he designed was built in stone and roofed in slate. Simple in style, it harmonised with the college's building known as 'Big School', built four years earlier.

In 1883 Benjamin Mountfort, the pre-eminent Victorian architect in Canterbury, was commissioned to extend the chapel by adding transepts and a chancel to the existing structure. Such an extension had been mooted by the college since 1878, but initially William Armson, another notable architect more generally remembered for his commercial buildings, was commissioned to extend the chapel. However, in 1882 the Christ's College Board of Governors decided to pay Armson off, rather than use his design, and the following year they accepted Mountfort's proposal. By 1884 the chapel had been enlarged considerably by the addition of the transepts and chancel. Four years later Mountfort also designed the organ chamber.