Church Of Holy Trinity

Church of Holy Trinity

This is a parish church on the north side of Main Street in Bosbury, originally built in the late 12th or early 13th century but incorporating fabric from an earlier 12th-century building. The church was significantly expanded with a 15th-century south porch and an early 16th-century Morton Chapel built by Thomas Morton (died 1511), brother of the Archbishop of Canterbury at that time. The building underwent restoration in 1871.

The structure is constructed of coursed sandstone rubble with tiled roofs. The south porch is part timber-framed. The plan comprises a nave with north and south aisles, a south porch, a south Morton Chapel, and a chancel.

The nave has six bays with a moulded corbel table and raised verges. Six evenly spaced lancet windows light the clerestory, with the roof of the south aisle positioned below them. At the west end is a 19th-century square-headed window with three trefoil-headed lights and a lancet; a similar lancet appears to the east. The projecting gabled south porch has later inserted dwarf walls below the framing, swept bracing to the main posts, and swept wind-braces to the roof, with a 19th-century bargeboard to the gable. The Morton Chapel lies to the east, featuring diagonal buttresses and an altered parapet (formerly embattled), with two 3-light transomed windows containing Perpendicular tracery and a similar 4-light window without transom on the east side.

The chancel has three bays with a corbel table and raised verge, three lancet windows, and a round-headed doorway between two western windows. The east window, a restored 4-light example from the late 15th century, displays Perpendicular tracery.

The interior contains six-bay arcades to the north and south aisles, each with two chamfered orders, chamfered label, circular piers with moulded bases and trumpet-scallop capitals. The nave has a single-framed rafter roof, possibly dating to the 13th century. The Morton Chapel features a two-bay stone fan-vault. The aisles have lean-to roofs with moulded principals and wall-plates. The chancel arch comprises two orders: the inner is chamfered, the outer has roll and fillet moulding; the responds have moulded bases and trumpet-scallop capitals.

Among the church's fittings is an extensively restored 15th-century wooden screen of five bays, with a central larger doorway flanked by outer bays each containing three traceried sub-divisions and ribbed coving above. The font, dating to around 1200, has a square base with five shafts supporting a square bowl with rounded concave sides. An early 17th-century lectern features a turned stem on a three-armed base supported by three scrolled struts. The pulpit and reader's desk incorporate 16th and 17th-century fragments.

The chancel south wall contains the John Harford memorial, a large recessed wall monument commemorating John Harford (died 1559), signed by John Guldo of Hereford in 1573. It has a pedimented surround with Corinthian columns on tall bases, a semi-circular head to the arched recess with Ionic capitals to the pilasters, and a recumbent effigy in civil costume on a sarcophagus supported by two lions. The whole is enriched with rosettes in the spandrels, large leaves and roundels in the tympanum, shell motifs, and three panels with vases. Two shields and an achievement of arms appear at the back of the recess.

The north wall displays a large recessed wall monument commemorating Richard Harford (died 1578), his wife Martha, and Anthony Harford, attributed to John Guldo of Hereford, though this attribution is considered improbable. Caryatid-type figures, possibly representing Adam and Eve, flank a central semi-circular headed arched recess with a segmental pediment. Two recumbent effigies in civil costume, one male and one female, rest on a sarcophagus supported by two grotesque animals. The monument is enriched with foliage and flock motifs and is more primitive in style than the John Harford memorial opposite.