Meole Brace Church Of Holy Trinity

The Church of Holy Trinity in Meole Brace is a parish church built between 1867 and 1868, designed by E Haycock Junior. It is constructed of rusticated red sandstone with paler stone dressings and ashlar bands, featuring a plain tiled roof with ridge cresting.

The church's plan incorporates a west tower clasped by the nave and lean-to aisles, alongside a chancel. The four-stage west tower has angle buttresses and paired, shouldered, square-headed lights in the second stage, surmounted by a clock. Higher still, paired lights illuminate the bell chamber, contained within a hollow chamfered banded arch. Additional detailing includes a quatrefoil frieze, a corbel table, an embattled parapet, a short spire, and a weather vane.

The south aisle has four bays defined by buttresses, with a coped gabled porch featuring short angle buttresses and a foiled archway, and a trefoil frieze above. It contains three-light Decorated windows. A gabled chapel projects, displaying two foiled lancet windows and a rose window. The chancel has an apsidal east end with three-light Decorated windows on each face, and a moulded eaves cornice, separated from the nave by a coped gable, although the roofline remains consistent throughout. A lean-to north aisle of four bays incorporates Decorated windows, and a gabled vestry projects from the aisle.

Inside, the nave arcade comprises five bays with cylindrical shafts supporting alternately foliate and ring moulded capitals and banded voussoirs. Cross-braced roof trusses are carried on corbels. The chancel arch features paired banded shafts with rich foliate capitals, and arches leading to side chapels. The ornate roof truss includes cross-bracing and curved struts flanking a king post. A marble low relief reredos and a quatrefoil wood frieze at wall plate are also present. Oak pews and a pulpit are likely original. The octagonal font has alternate panels of marble inlay and raised decorative foliage. A war memorial is located beneath the west window, featuring high relief figures of a soldier and an angel kneeling on either side of a name plate beneath a canopy.

The church is renowned for its comprehensive set of stained-glass windows by Morris and Company. Chancel windows dated 1870 depict scenes from the Old and New Testaments on either side of the Crucifixion, with angels, saints, and prophets. South side chapel windows, dated 1894 by Kempe, show the Annunciation with full-height figures. South aisle windows from 1899, by Morris and Co., portray full-height figures of prophets, saints, and virtues against a pale ground, with this series continued in the north aisle windows dated 1903 and 1916. An earlier north window, dated 1887, depicts Martha and Mary against a dark ground of drapes and vine leaves.