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Christ Church,
Church Lane,
Wellington Heath, Ledbury, Herefordshire.

Cemeteries

This Church has (or had) a graveyard.

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded in 1840, and we understand it is still open.

Christ Church was rebuilt in 1951, as the original church, dating from 1840 caught fire.

A local resident told me that Wellington Heath grew up as the proverbial "shanty town", settled by workers brought into the area when the railway line between Worcester and Hereford was being built. Construction included a viaduct across the River Leadon valley, so would have needed a substantial workforce; the railway line was opened in 1861.

Littlebury's Directory of 1876 dates the arrival of its first settlers as earlier than that: "the cottages are mostly freehold; the ground was formerly held by squatters, until the Ledbury Enclosure Act of 54th George III in 1814, secured them their freehold". It describes the first church as "a plain building of stone, consisting of a nave with bell-cot and one bell (which) stands on the summit of a hill, and may be seen from a great distance". It also refers to a subscription list to raise funds for building a new church, for which "a beautiful reredos has already been promised".

Wellington Heath was previously part of "Ledbury Foreign". According to Kelly's Directory of Herefordshire & Shropshire of 1895, it was created a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1840, and a civil parish in 1894. Kelly also reports that the promised rebuilding did go ahead: the building was enlarged in 1878, when transepts were added, and a triple-arched chancel screen erected; and in 1889, a western turret containing 8 tubular bells, substituted for the single bell previously in use.

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church is located at OS grid reference SO7114940718. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Christ Church, Wellington Heath, Ledbury shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Ledbury shown on a Google Map.
• Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
• Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
• OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
• A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
• www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)