Church Of The Holy Trinity

The Church of the Holy Trinity is a small church located in Morton Bagot, dating back to the late 13th century. The east wall and part of the nave are from the 15th century, while the south porch and turret were constructed around 1600. The chancel is built of coursed squared limestone with buttresses in both white and brown stone. The nave’s north and south walls are of regular coursed lias, partially rendered, while the west wall is of uncoursed limestone rubble. The timber-framed porch has lath and plaster infill, and the turret features close studding with jowled posts and lath and plaster infill. The roof is covered in old tiles, with a late 20th-century tile covering the chancel.

The building comprises a two-bay nave, a two-bay chancel, and a west bell turret with a south porch. The church features an arched south door and doorway with remnants of a hood mould. The open porch has jowled posts. The chancel east window is a 15th-century design of three cinque-foiled lights. There are eastern angle and western buttresses, and a 19th-century cross finial. The north and south walls have late 13th-century windows of paired trefoiled lights. A trefoiled lancet is located in the north wall. The south wall incorporates an unusual simple trefoiled lancet with a narrow trefoil piercing above, with a blocked lower part, possibly originally a low-side window. The nave has north buttresses and diagonal buttresses to the west end, along with a blocked late 13th-century north door and a two-light trefoiled window. A small lancet is also present. The south wall boasts two early 14th-century windows of three lights with cusped intersecting tracery, along with a renewed late 13th-century west window of two trefoiled lights. The gabled turret has single openings.

Inside, the chancel features a 14th-century ogee-arched piscina with a leaf-carved bowl in the south wall, along with a common-rafter roof with ashlar pieces and two 15th/16th-century tie beams. The chancel arch, of two chamfered orders, has simple imposts with an incised, simplified stiff leaf pattern. Nave walls are plastered. A piscina remains in the south wall. The nave has a queen post roof with renewed tie beams and wind races, partly obscured by a ceiling. A substantial truss supports the bell turret. Fittings include a plain 13th-century octagonal font with simple mouldings, a 16th-century wood cover, 19th-century altar rails with traceried panels from a 15th-century oak screen, and a 15th-century carved oak prayer desk with poppy heads and openwork panels, brought from the Catholic chapel at Avon Dassett. It’s considered an interesting example of a small, relatively unaltered medieval church, and it forms part of a larger group including Church Farmhouse, barn range, and barn and shelter sheds.