This visitors book can be found in Christ Church in Laxey.
Christ Church was consecrated in 1856 for the local Lead miners to worship in. It was built to a design by Ewan Christian and construction costs of £950 were paid for by the Mining Company.
"This Chapel-of-ease has a simple interior with exposed timber roof and geometric and pleasung diagonal-paned stained glass...The style is a stripped down Gothic with narrow lancet windows in the early English style. The steep pitch of the roof is characteristic of Ewan Christian's work from this period. It was built to accomodate the rapidly increasing population of Laxey during the height of the mining activity, as the parish church was some distance away."
Source: An Introduction to the Architecture of the Isle of Man by Patricia Tutt (ISBN 978-1-907945-10-6)
The Church has retained is special historic character although it has undergone major improvement works to provide modern toilet facilities, wheelchair friendly access and a space for providing refreshment.
The font is hexagonal in shape on a hexagonal pillar and base. Each of the sides is simply decorated with an inset 'quaterfoil' (a common feature of Gothic arhitecture) and the pillar has inset panels with an interesting ‘foot arrangement’; to provide extra stability where the pillar meets the base.
"A quatrefoil (anciently caterfoil) is a decorative element consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter. It is found in art, architecture, heraldry and traditional Christian symbolism. The word quatrefoil means "four leaves", from Latin quattuor, four, plus folium, a leaf, referring specifically to a four-leafed clover, but applies in general to four-lobed shapes in various contexts. (
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Interestingly unlike most of the baptismal church fonts on the Isle of Man this example does not have any cover. Whether this has been lost or accidentally destroyed can only be speculated on.
The style of the church is stripped down Gothic and the stained glass windows are lancet windows in the early English style with geometric and pleasing diagonal-panes.
Definition of Lancet: "Slender single-light, pointed-arched window. Hence lancet style, the first phase of English Gothic architecture (c.1180-1250; also called Early English), from its use of such windows."
Source: "Pevsner's Arhitectual Glossary" (ISBN: 978-0-300-22368-2)
The Church Organ was made by Moses Morgan and is a 2-manual instrument. The Pipework for this Churuch organ is Gt: 8,8,4, Sw: 8,8,8,8,4 Ped: 16.
Though there is no builder’s nameplate on this organ (one wonders why?) it is very obviously by Moses Morgan, with its light oak case, ornamented with fretwork and turnings on the case posts. There are two case displays, with the one looking down the church being entirely dummy, the pipes being painted a dark, matt blue, relieved by gold details. Christ Church is a narrow building, and Morgan had to contend with a shallow site. His answer was to make the swell-box very shallow, with a sloping top which fits the sloping roof line and this makes the swell shutter mechanism very efficient indeed.
Having no room for a Swell Diapason Stop, Morgan provided a narrow 'string'-toned stop, which, never-the-less, has all its own bass pipes, without the need to borrow from the stopped bass of the Gedact.
The action is mechanical (with a surprising array of couplers). The pedal actions are pneumatic. One unusual feature of this very attractive little instrument is seen in the position allowed for the hand blower - undoubted the most restricted and awkward of any on the Island. (Fortunately, the instrument has had electric blowing since the 1930s.) (
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