Roman Catholic Church Of The Holy Trinity And War Memorial

Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity and War Memorial

A Roman Catholic church built in 1833-4 in the Gothic style, designed by its first priest, James Egan. The building was extended in the 20th century with additions to the east end and north-west corner.

The church is constructed of blue vitrified brick, enlivened by ornamental bricks, and covered with slate roofs. It is rectangular in plan, consisting of an aisled and clerestoried nave of six bays with a gallery at its west end and a shallow projecting chancel with an east window. Later additions include a sacristy, anteroom and kitchen, and the Martyrs' Chapel. An apsidal-ended confessional is located at the north-west corner.

The symmetrical west front is articulated into the nave and aisles by full-height pilasters divided into traceried panels with embattled tops, matched by lower pilasters at the corners. The nave top is flat and embattled, as are the tops of the aisles. The entire façade is decorated with tiers of shallow arcading divided by stringcourses and ornamented with decorative brickwork using moulded bricks, bricks with embossed or incised patterns, and bricks laid to a projecting diaper pattern. The central recessed entrance has a two-centred arched surround of stepped brick mouldings, with modern doors and glazed infill above. The six-tier window above the doorway has cast-iron tracery and is set within a giant ogee arch of bull-nosed bricks. Blind arches occur in the end walls of the aisles; the lower ones are deeply recessed while the upper arches match the west window design in miniature. The aisles are subdivided into six bays by pilaster buttresses and a decorated, embattled parapet of raised diaperwork. Each bay contains two-light Decorated windows with cast-iron tracery. The square chancel has a wooden east window of five lights and a traceried circle with quatrefoil decoration, set within a two-centred-arched surround of bull-nosed bricks. The sacristy has a hipped roof and three lancet windows with coloured glass to its south wall. A late 20th-century flat-roofed anteroom with a single window adjoins the structure, with a round-headed doorway in an adjacent gabled porch. The Martyrs' Chapel also has a hipped roof and a square-headed three-light window to its east elevation.

The interior nave features three wide arched main bays with lozenge-shaped piers formed of clustered shafts. Each main bay is subdivided into two, with wall-shafts rising to the roof. Each main bay contains two clerestory windows with Y-tracery and rose-window-like piercings in the spandrels. The nave roof is shallow and boarded, while the aisles have low-pitched lean-to roofs. The east wall of the nave, around the chancel arch, is panelled with two tiers of tall, narrow cusped recesses. Similar recesses, but in three tiers, fill the sanctuary walls. The lower part of the sanctuary walls is revetted with mottled pink and grey marble, likely Victorian in date. Three painted panels on the sanctuary ceiling depict an Agnus Dei and crosses. An organ gallery at the west end is carried on two slender columns. The Lady Chapel to the north and Sacred Heart Chapel to the south both feature richly-carved Victorian stone reredos with niches and numerous pinnacles, retaining their contemporary altars. The sanctuary also has an ornately-carved reredos, with a carved high altar brought forward. A Victorian altar rail with open trefoiled arches and gilded spandrels runs the full width of the church. The stone font is octagonal on a square base, with an intricately-carved timber cover. The east window contains Victorian stained glass; the remaining windows in the aisles are modern. The sanctuary floor is laid with patterned Victorian tiles, while the nave and aisles have woodblock flooring installed after 1964.

A war memorial stands to the front of the church, commemorating members of the congregation who died in the First World War, with an additional plaque added after the Second World War. The memorial was renovated in 2000 when the name panels were renewed. It takes the form of a tapering plinth surmounted by a shaft and Celtic cross, both decorated with Celtic knotwork carving.

The presbytery to the east and the community centre to the south are not included in the listing, as they are not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest.