Christ Church Churchyard: The Chapel on the Hill

Christ Church is a gothic ragstone church designed in 1852-54 by Ewan Christian, who built the National Portrait Gallery and was architectural adviser to the Ecclesiastical Commission. The land for a church was donated by the Earl of Dartmouth to provide a centrepiece for his Dartmouth Park Estate. Christ Church, a large church built to accommodate at least 940 people, was consecrated in 1855 although the north aisle was not added until 1862. In 1885 the tower and its 56m high octagonal spire was built and, standing at the top of Church Rise, remains a local landmark. Christ Church closed in 1988 due to structural problems and later ceased to be the parish church, and was declared redundant in 2003/4. The building was acquired by a private company and partly converted into flats. As a result most of the church and its former churchyard are no longer publicly accessible; a fence divides the flats and the chapel where a small place of worship was created in the chancel at the east end of the church. Now known as The Chapel on the Hill, services have been held here since 2008 and it was rededicated by the Bishop of Woolwich on 5 September 2010. The parish of St George's Christ Church and St Paul's is now served by a new church on the site of the old St George's Church, demolished due to subsidence. The enlarged parish now includes St Michael Lower Sydenham and is the Parish of Forest Hill St George with St Michael and All Angels Lower Sydenham.

The churchyard was bordered by hedge, with railings to Church Rise and had some fine tombs and gravestones although it has since been redeveloped and the graves moved. Although part of the original site boundary remains indicating its former extent, the churchyard is now largely in private ownership as residents' gardens; an area north of the church has been converted for parking, and a further plot that was formerly part of the churchyard and adjacent vicarage is awaiting development (2022). A red granite obelisk to the left of the main entrance to the church, which marks the family grave of George and Mary Baxter, is now in a private garden. George had married Mary Harrild in 1827, daughter of Robert Harrild who manufactured printing equipment and was developer of the Sydenham Park Estate. Baxter developed a more economical method of printing in colour, which he patented in 1835. He died in an accident with a horse-drawn vehicle, and is remembered in the small park, Baxter's Field (q.v.). Nearby was the gravestone to the Hennell family; Alexander Hennell (d.1915) was the architect of Crystal Palace District Cemetery, now known as Beckenham Crematorium and Cemetery (q.v.). By the west wall was a memorial in the form of a pinnacle to members of the Tetley family of tea fame, dated 1872.

Although most of the churchyard has been lost to development, an area of the former churchyard between the Chapel on the Hill and South Road was landscaped as a small garden, and has a walkway of trees leading up to the door of the Chapel, a small memorial garden planted out with spring bulbs, and the rest turfed. At weekends and holidays this garden is accessible to the public but not during school term time when it is used as a school play area for the Montessori school that uses the chancel.