Church Of The Holy Trinity

Church of the Holy Trinity

This is a parish church built in 1853-4 by the renowned architect William Butterfield for William Henry Dawnay, seventh Viscount Downe. It was constructed by Charles Ward of Lincoln. The church was repaired in 1910, when work to the north arcade and nave walls probably included removal of a north chimney and plastering of the interior.

The building is constructed in red brick laid in English bond with sandstone ashlar dressings, and is roofed in Welsh slate. It is designed in the Gothic Revival style. The plan comprises a 5-bay aisled nave with a west tower, south porch, and single-bay chancel with an adjoining vestry on the north side.

The south aisle contains four 3-light trefoiled windows; the north aisle has three similar windows. The nave's west end is tripartite: a projecting lower section carries a partly-projecting central tower with a deeply-recessed pointed 2-light traceried window beneath a double-chamfered segmental-pointed arch, flanked by single narrow 2-light traceried windows and outer buttresses. The three window recesses have prominent sill string courses and sloping bases. The tower is fitted with flanking buttresses rising above the nave roof line, a sill string course and recessed 2-light plate-traceried belfry openings, and a short 4-sided spire crowned with a wrought-iron weather-vane.

The chancel features a chamfered plinth and angle buttresses to the east end, a pointed 3-light traceried south window with sill string course, and a large pointed 3-light traceried east window set beneath a small circular opening and a coped gable with cross finial. The porch has a chamfered plinth and a pointed double-chamfered outer arch with inner chamfer dying into the jambs, a pointed moulded inner arch, and a scissor-braced roof. A corbelled ashlar eaves cornice runs along the nave and the slightly lower chancel; exposed rafter ends finish the aisles and porch. All roofs are steeply pitched.

Internally, the arcades feature pointed moulded arches of three orders with mouldings dying into chamfered square piers and responds, with the west bay being narrower. A pointed recess, formerly a fireplace, opens into the north aisle. The west end has a projecting tower section with a chamfered ashlar plinth and twin buttresses flanking a recessed central window beneath double segmental pointed arches; a keeled ashlar sill string course runs to the flanking windows. The chancel arch is tall and double-chamfered with a corbelled inner order; a tablet commemorating Reverend Cecil Sykes of 1898 is set below the north corbel in a carved ashlar surround. The chancel contains a pointed fillet-moulded vestry door and a trefoiled chamfered piscina.

The nave roof comprises eight bays with single side-purlins and arch-braced collars with trefoiled panels above. The chancel roof is scissor-braced and boarded above the sanctuary. The walls are plastered and whitewashed throughout.

The interior fittings include a large ashlar font with an octagonal step, moulded circular base, and a bowl decorated with blind arcading of cusped pointed arches on cylindrical piers, accompanied by a tall pointed wooden font cover with traceried panels suspended from an ornate wrought-iron bracket. There is an octagonal panelled oak pulpit with an ashlar base and octagonal tester. Original oak altar rails feature plain trefoiled panels. The floor is laid with red, yellow and black Minton tiles, those in the sanctuary bearing the Downe crest and monogram. An ornate carved oak reredos, inserted later, depicts Christ and Apostles in relief, with traceried panelling added to the chancel in 1910. The east and west windows contain mid-19th-century stained glass, while the south windows hold late 19th-century and early 20th-century stained glass.

Cowick Church was built contemporaneously with the neighbouring vicarage and school, and forms part of a similar group of buildings by Butterfield at nearby Hensall in North Yorkshire and Pollington. It is the largest of these three churches; its west end was probably modelled on Lindisfarne Church on Holy Island, Northumberland.