Church Of The Holy Trinity

Church of the Holy Trinity

Church built 1909-10 by Alexander Ellis of Birmingham in Gothic style, with the baptistery completed in 1930. The building is constructed of random rubble with ashlar dressings and plain tile roofs with stone coped verges.

The church comprises a 5-bay nave with an apsidal west baptistery, north-west and south-west porches, and a south aisle. The chancel has 2 bays and is accompanied by a south vestry and organ chamber. The building was never fully completed; it was originally intended to have a north aisle and tower, and the north wall of the chancel remains blind, evidently prepared for an attached building that was never constructed.

The south aisle bay divisions are marked by buttresses topped with cast iron rainwater heads. Each bay is sheltered under a gable and contains a pointed 3-light window with Decorated tracery and a trefoil opening in the gable above. The clerestory is lit by pointed 2-light windows and is finished with a cyma reversa moulded cornice and pinnacles at the corners. The south porch is gabled with a pointed arch on cylindrical shafts, matched by an identical porch on the north side. Against the north porch stands the stub of the west wall of the intended north aisle. At the east end of the nave on the north side is a buttress topped by a small timber-framed bell cote housing a single bell. The west end terminates in an apsidal baptistery with small lancet windows. The east window of the chancel has 5 lights with Decorated tracery and a trefoil opening in the gable. The vestry and organ chamber on the south side are gabled to the east and south, with a porch positioned within the re-entrant angle of this L-shaped plan, featuring an openwork parapet and a doorway with Caernarvon arch.

Interior

The 5-bay nave arcades consist of pointed arches springing from cylindrical columns, each with 4 banded shafts and moulded bases. The capitals of the south arcade are exceptionally richly carved with naturalistic foliage, each one different, incorporating roses, thistles, oak leaves and acorns, vine leaves and bunches of grapes, ears of corn, serpents, and birds. The capitals of the blind north arcade remain uncarved but were clearly intended to mirror their southern counterparts. At the west end of the nave is a lower 3-bay arcade, also featuring naturalistic capitals and banded shafts, leading to the baptistery with a polygonal apse. The chancel arch is double chamfered and springs from a pair of corbelled cylindrical shafts with naturalistically carved capitals. Either side of the chancel are 2-bay arcades on a smaller scale, again with the north arcade left blind. Wooden barrel-vaults extend over the nave and chancel, supported on thin transverse ribs rising from shafted corbels with naturalistic foliage in the chancel but left uncarved in the nave. Window rear-arches spring from shafts and have returned hood moulds.

Fixtures and Fittings

The baptistery contains a font with an octagonal basin on a cylindrical shaft with octagonal steps. The nave has simple bench pews and choir stalls with openwork poppyheads. An octagonal stone pulpit on a cylindrical base with multiple shafting has sides decorated with Decorated tracery. A brass lectern with a cylindrical shaft on an inverted funnel-shaped base with clawed feet is inscribed with Romanesque patterns and has foliage brackets supporting an openwork book rest. The altar rail stands on wrought iron legs. Two sedilia with cinquefoil heads on cylindrical shafts have carved capitals and share a common hood mould with the piscina, which is in the same style. A simple wooden reredos features cinquefoil arcading.

Stained Glass

The stained glass throughout is of high quality. The east window, dating from after 1931, depicts Jesus the Good Shepherd in the centre with Saint Peter and Dorcas to the right and Saints John and Paul to the left. In the south aisle, the second window from the east dates from after 1901 and is possibly by Kempe and Co.; the third from the east is from after 1957. The westernmost window of the aisle is a First World War memorial. The baptistery contains small windows by A.J. Davies of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, dating from 1946, 1936, 1936, 1936, and 1942 respectively, from north to south.