Trinity with Palm Grove United Reformed Church is a Grade II listed building in the Wirral local planning authority area, England. First listed on 10 August 1992. Church.

Trinity with Palm Grove United Reformed Church

WRENN ID
white-render-mallow
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Wirral
Constituency
Birkenhead MP: Alison McGovern (Lab)
Country
England
Date first listed
10 August 1992
Type
Church
Address
Trinity with Palm Grove United Reformed Church, Alton Road
OS grid reference
SJ 302 882
Coordinates
53.38618, -3.05006
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

This is a Presbyterian church, built between 1865 and 1866, designed by W. and J. Hay. It is constructed of coursed rubble with red and yellow ashlar dressings and a Welsh slate roof. The building includes a west tower with a spire, a nave with aisles, a hall complex to the east and south, and is located on Alton Road in Claughton, Birkenhead.

The asymmetrical west front features a striking tower and spire set to the north. A doorway is framed by short paired shafts with a trefoiled head in a moulded archway, with steep lancet windows on either side and a 5-light Decorated window above. The tower has a raking plinth and a lancet window with three small lancets in its lower stage. A door in the north wall leads to a projecting stair turret. The spire features paired bell chamber lights in gables, angle pinnacles with stepped bases, and lucarnes. A full-height canted porch with a stilted arched doorway and three-light window sits to the south, with the aisle windows grouped in threes above taller, two-light Decorated windows. The transepts have triple lancet windows on each side of a central buttress and a four-light Decorated window above. The eastern hall range appears as a chancel with a lower roof and an apsidal east end. A large gabled porch fronts the hall on the north side, featuring short shafts with stiff-leaf capitals. The gable of the hall projects to the right, followed by a circular eastern end. Later church rooms, built to the south, are constructed of rock-faced brick with canted bay windows flanking a central projecting case with a door.

Inside, the church has a nave with aisles, shallow transepts, and an integrated sanctuary. A curved gallery runs around three sides, supported by square cast-iron columns with foliate capitals. The principal roof trusses are also carried on cast iron columns with foliate capitals. A timber arched arcade runs along the upper level of the aisles, with dormers cutting into the lean-to aisle roofs. The sanctuary is covered by quadripartite timber vaulting. An archway provides access to the organ, and a central wood octagonal pulpit with traceried panels is positioned to the east of the sanctuary. Choir stalls flank the pulpit, with reading desks and a lectern on either side. Stained glass windows are present throughout, including one depicting Christ with saints and angels in the lower window of the south transept, and other windows dating from 1898, 1900, 1881 (a medieval style narrative scene), 1891 (a painterly representation of "Suffer the Little Children"), and 1903.

Local climate

Trinity with Palm Grove United Reformed Church sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 1,100 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 87% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 78% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 17 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 83% of listed buildings. Of these, 8 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

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