Chapel Of The Holy Trinity

The Chapel of the Holy Trinity is a Grade I listed building, notable for being a complete example of a church built during the Commonwealth period. An inscription above the west doors states, "In the year 1653 when all things sacred were throughout ye nation either demolisht or profaned Sir Robert Shirley Baronet, founded this church, whose singular praise it is to have done ye best things in ye worst times and hoped them in the most calamitous. The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance." Construction began in 1653, and the church, along with its furnishings, was completed in 1665.

The chapel is designed in a gothic style, characterized by a sharply articulated structure that includes a west tower, a short nave with three bays featuring a clerestory and aisles, and a chancel. The tower has paired bell openings with Y-tracery, battlements, and pinnacles topped with windvanes. The body of the church features embattled parapets with crocketted pinnacles over the buttresses, flat-headed traceried lights in the clerestory, and other windows in an early decorated style.

The elaborate baroque west doorway is adorned with paired tapering pilasters, swags, mannerist angels, and an inscription plate with the Shirley arms above. Inside, the architecture retains a gothic style, but the fittings are predominantly Jacobean. The original west door leads to an ornate west screen with a pierced central archway and side arches, topped with a pierced leaf scroll frieze and a panelled base. Above this is the organ loft, which incorporates the Shirley arms in a broken segmental pediment, housing a Schmidt organ with a case dating from 1686. The interior features box pews, wall panelling, and casing for the piers, with plain panels in the nave and more ornate ones in the chancel. A two-decker pulpit and a wrought iron chancel screen, crafted by Robert Bakewell in 1711, are also present, along with four hatchments. The ceiling is painted throughout, depicting a curious scene of clouds and elements representing the creation out of chaos, signed by Samuel and Zachary Kink and dated 1655. The original communion table dates from around 1660 to 1665.