Church Of The Holy Trinity

Church of the Holy Trinity

A parish church of 1838 built by Thomas Johnson, architect of Lichfield, with alterations made in 1888–89 by Samuel Rollinson, architect of Chesterfield. A choir vestry was added in 1938.

The church is built of pecked square blocks of gritstone with freestone dressings and a slate roof. The rock-faced choir vestry is a later addition.

The plan comprises a nave, short lower chancel, west tower with flanking porches, north-east vestry, south organ chamber, and west choir vestry.

The exterior displays plain early 19th-century Gothic style. The four-stage west tower has angle buttresses with gabled caps to the first three stages, and shallow gabled buttresses with attached shafts to the upper stage. The parapet is arcaded with triangular merlons and large corner turrets. The second stage contains a lancet west window with a clock in the west face and small north and south lancets above. The bell stage has two lancets with louvres. The lean-to porches have west lancet windows and doorways with hood moulds, head stops, and ribbed doors. The six-bay nave has buttresses with gable caps beneath a plain parapet, with lancet windows above sill and plinth bands. Small trefoil windows are set in the west wall above the porches. The chancel east window comprises three stepped lancets with attached shafts and hood moulds with head stops. The lower south organ chamber has lancet south and east windows. The vestry has a hipped lean-to roof and square-headed windows. The choir vestry contains a re-used two-light plate-tracery west window.

The interior is distinguished by an unusually wide nave, originally designed to accommodate a three-sided gallery. The west end has been closed off by a partition with gallery above. The nave roof features pine tie-beam trusses strengthened by queen posts, arched braces and three axial beams, with deep panelled coving above the tie beams. The chancel arch has polygonal responds, possibly inserted in 1889. The arch to the organ recess is similar. The vestry doorway in the east wall of the nave has a continuous moulding. Walls are plastered and nave windows have hood moulds with head stops. The south porch contains an open-well gallery stair of cantilevered stone treads with iron balusters. Original floors are concealed, though floorboards exist beneath pews and stone paving in the sanctuary.

Principal fixtures include an east window of stained glass that is a memorial to the engineer George Stephenson (died 1848), probably dating from the 1850s and erected by his son Robert. Stephenson's grave marker, a simple memorial slab, lies in the sanctuary floor. The font of 1838 has a narrow octagonal bowl with pointed quatrefoils. The pulpit, also of 1838, features open arcading and steps with later wrought-iron balusters. Surviving pews have shaped and moulded ends. The chancel has a 20th-century panelled dado and reredos of three arches under gables with rich tracery, a cross and symbols of the Evangelists.

The church was altered internally in 1889 by Samuel Rollinson, who added the organ chamber and probably removed the gallery. An early engraving shows the original interior had box pews and a three-sided gallery. The choir vestry was added in 1938. In 1994 the interior was re-ordered by removing the pews and closing off the west end of the nave.

The church is the burial place of the railway engineer George Stephenson (1781–1848), whose wife worshipped here. A modern inscription describes him as "Railway Pioneer: First President of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers".