Church Of Holy Trinity

Church of Holy Trinity, Bourton

A parish church of 12th-century origin, extended in 1844 when a new aisle was added and the church was refurnished.

The building is constructed of coursed sandstone and siltstone with grey and buff freestone dressings, dressed sandstone quoins, and tile roofs. The tower is weatherboarded. The plan comprises a nave with a lower and narrower chancel, a north aisle under a separate roof, a south porch, a west belfry, and a north vestry.

The church has a neo-Norman character. The nave contains two south windows of 1844 with 2-light plate tracery windows under hood moulds. The principal external feature is a round-headed south doorway of the late 12th century, fitted with a panelled door of the 19th century inside the porch. The asymmetrical porch has an entrance under a cambered lintel with an iron gate, and a later lean-to boiler house set back on its left side under an outshut roof. The west wall has a single small window under a shouldered lintel in a red-sandstone surround. The chancel contains blocked square-headed windows of the 16th or 17th century in the south and east walls, replaced by a simple pointed window in the east wall. The north aisle of 1844 has hammer-dressed sandstone quoins and oversailing eaves. Its west wall has a round-headed doorway giving access to the gallery stairs, with a small round-headed window above. The north wall has four recessed bays with 2-light plate tracery windows similar to those in the nave, and the east wall has a cross-shaped window. The weatherboarded belfry has square louvered bell openings to each face and a round clock face to the west, dated 1940 by plaque inside the church, beneath a pyramidal roof with apex weathervane. The north vestry has paired pointed lights in the north gable end.

The interior has plaster walls and ceilings. The three-bay north arcade has round piers with moulded capitals and double-chamfered round arches. The chancel arch is round with nook shafts, foliage capitals, and a hood mould. The nave has an 18th-century canted plaster ceiling on moulded wooden cornices with a ceiling rose, whilst the chancel has a plaster barrel ceiling on moulded cornices also with a ceiling rose, both of similar date and possibly concealing medieval roofs. The north aisle has a tall hammer-beam roof, which is plastered above collar beams. The nave and aisle have floors of red and black tiles with cast-iron grilles over heating pipes. The chancel floor comprises re-used grave slabs and modern tiles, with modern panelled wainscot.

The principal interior feature is the seating arrangement of 1844. The nave west gallery, a private pew for the Lawley family, is carried on broad square posts and has a panelled front, accessed by stairs in the north aisle with turned balusters and moulded hand rail. Box pews in the nave and aisle have plain ends except for roundels decorated with various motifs including quatrefoils and 6-pointed stars, with carved poppy heads. The font is said to be 12th century, standing on a round base and square plinth; it is not lead-lined and is broken on one side. A 17th-century polygonal pulpit stands on a pedestal with richly ornamented panels, some renewed. The reading desk also has enriched panels but is much renewed. The communion rail is 20th century. A hatchment to Sir Robert Lawley of 1834 dominates the east wall of the aisle. The nave south wall contains a wooden 1914-18 war memorial plaque and a brass plaque to Harry Lister, who went missing on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. A wooden board with a table of fees, dated 1789, hangs beneath the gallery.

The church was built in the 12th century, of which the south doorway is the only surviving feature of that period. It was altered in the early 18th century, the date of the present plaster ceilings. In 1844 a north aisle was built, the chancel arch was rebuilt, a gallery and box pews were installed, and the church was refurnished.