Church Of The Holy Trinity

Church of the Holy Trinity, Trinity Street, Highfield

Parish church built between 1816 and 1819 by Thomas Taylor, an architect from Leeds who trained under James Wyatt. The church was constructed to serve the growing population of Huddersfield in the early 19th century, particularly the middle-class residents of the surrounding villas and terraces on Mountry Road. Benjamin Allen, a leading promoter of the development, founded the church.

The building is constructed of coursed and squared sandstone with slate roofs and follows the simple Gothic style characteristic of early 19th-century church architecture. It comprises an aisled nave with a lower chancel, a west tower, a north organ chamber, a south vestry, and a crypt beneath the nave and aisles.

The exterior is dominated by a tall four-stage tower with angle buttresses and an embattled parapet with corner pinnacles. The tower has a west doorway in a projecting surround with Y-tracery windows, round clock faces in the third stage, and a taller bell stage containing three-light openings with intersecting tracery and an arcaded transom. The five-bay nave and aisles have embattled parapets with pinnacles rising from the buttresses. Y-tracery clerestory windows sit above tall three-light aisle windows with intersecting tracery. The chancel is also embattled, with buttresses carried up above the parapet under gable caps, and features a large five-light east window with intersecting tracery and a transom. Below the east window are arched doorways to the crypt. The north and south walls contain two blind clerestory chancel windows above the two-bay vestry and organ chamber, which sit under lean-to roofs.

The interior retains most of its original architectural elements despite significant alterations. The first two bays of the nave beneath the west gallery and the first two bays of the aisles have been partitioned off, but the architectural features remain visible. The nave arcades feature tall octagonal piers with chamfered arches. The chancel arch is tall and finely moulded, with an inner order on corbelled shafts with capitals. The tower arch similarly has an inner order on shafts. The nave has an arched-brace roof on corbelled wall shafts with cusped decoration in the spandrels, behind which the roof is plastered and supported by three purlins on each side. The two-bay chancel roof is similar. The lean-to aisle roofs feature cusped detailing matching the nave and chancel. Tall arches open to the organ recess from the north aisle and chancel. The walls are plastered, and the floor is covered with modern carpet. The crypt is unusually elaborate for its period, featuring rib vaults on octagonal piers, exposed stone walls, and loculi for coffins.

The font has an octagonal bowl and stem with blind arcading; its cover is dated 1965. Most nave furnishings were removed in a major reordering in 1995, when service rooms were partitioned off from the main body of the church. The openwork Gothic pulpit from this removal is now in the crypt. The current west gallery has a frontal incorporating older panels. Elaborate choir stalls with blind arcaded ends and tracery, along with open-tracery frontals, date to the early 20th century. The sanctuary panelling, including a reredos with three canopied niches, is also early 20th century. A notable wall monument to Benjamin Allen, dated 1829 and created by Bennett of York, depicts a sarcophagus beneath a palm tree and dove with a fulsome inscription honouring the church's founder. The Allen family vaults are located in the crypt. Stained-glass windows include a First World War memorial window created by Hardman of Birmingham.

The subsidiary features include four octagonal gate piers with Gothick overthrow and an attached wall.

The church originally featured galleries on three sides of the nave and aisles, accounting for the tall proportions of the interior. In 1995, the interior underwent major reordering designed by architects Peter Wright and Martin Phelps, when most nave furnishings were removed and service rooms were partitioned from the main body of the church.