Holy Trinity Church

Holy Trinity Church, High Street, Wordsley

A Commissioners' Church designed by Lewis Vulliamy and built 1829-31. The chancel was replaced in 1886-7 by architect Alfred Perry.

The church is constructed of sandstone ashlar with structural ironwork, with slate roofs. It comprises a west tower, an aisled nave with clerestory, galleries on three sides, an organ chamber to the north, and a vestry to the south of the chancel.

Exterior

The overall impression is Perpendicular Gothic, solidly executed though with some details not archaeologically accurate for the period. Doorways and internal arches are generally Tudor arched; window arches are two-centred. The tall and imposing tower is of five short stages defined by stringcourses that continue around the angle buttresses. It has an embattled parapet with tall angle pinnacles. Each face features two exceptionally long louvred bell-openings of two lights each. The walls began to bulge, presumably through inadequate internal bracing to compensate for the long openings, and were stabilised with external steel straps in 1977. The fourth stage has a quatrefoil frieze below clock faces set in square sunken panels. Above the west door is a tall three-light window.

The lean-to aisles have embattled parapets and small gabled porches in the second bay from the west, these having pinnacles matching those on the angles of the aisle roofs. The west faces of the aisles have small doors to the gallery stairs. Aisle windows are of two lights with cusped tracery and a transom.

Perry's chancel of 1886-7 is of two bays marked by buttresses and pinnacles, with two-light transomed windows to north and south, and a broad five-light east window. The east window is essentially of 1831 but with slightly altered tracery at the top centre. The vestry, which formerly stood under the east window until 1886, was rebuilt south of the chancel. Also dating from 1886-7 is the deeply projecting organ chamber on the north side.

Interior

The nave is tall and very spacious, with deep galleries continuing behind the arcades and across the west wall. Slim octagonal stone piers support four-centred nave arcades, which are deeply moulded. The galleries have panelled fronts, and exposed iron braces underneath running back to the aisle walls. Similar braces act as tie-beams to the aisle roofs. The nave ceiling is flat, with thin beams borne on little quadrant braces at the sides.

Perry's elaborate chancel ceiling of 1886-7 has four-centred trusses with musician angels on the corbels.

Fixtures and Fittings

Many fittings relate to figures in the glass industry. A large complex reredos with numerous saints in stone and alabaster was made by J.A. Chatwin in 1891, carved by Robert Bridgeman of Lichfield. An oak pulpit and lectern by G.F. Webb (Webb & Gray) date to 1932; the pulpit is now stored beneath the west gallery. Pews by T. Grazebrook date to 1914; box pews of 1831 survive in the north and south galleries.

The font of 1831 stands in the chancel; another font in the south aisle, of marble and Caen stone, is by J.B. Davies, 1883. The Lady Chapel in the north aisle was fitted out in 1932-3 by Webb & Gray, retaining the original communion table of 1831.

The Gothic organ case may be that installed in the west gallery in 1838.

Stained glass includes an east window by Arthur Erridge for Wippell & Co., 1958, which replaced one by Powell & Sons, 1865. Chancel windows by Winfield (south-west) and Samuel Evans (north and south-east), all 1891. Evans also designed the west window in 1891 and the easternmost lights of the north and south aisles in 1893. The north aisle contains a window by Walter Camm, 1911. In the north aisle is a plaque to Oswald Meatyard (died 1907), by Sidney Meteyard; bronze, with a large angel in the Burne-Jones style, in iridescent blue-green enamel.

History

Wordsley began as a hamlet in the parish of St Mary Kingswinford. Early 19th-century industrialisation, especially glass manufacture, made the distant parish church too small. On 28 February 1826, the vestry agreed to build a new church on land donated by the Earl of Dudley. The contract price was £6,755, of which the sale of glebe land provided £1,929, the Church Commissioners gave approximately £3,000, and the rest was raised locally. The foundation stone was laid on 27 August 1829, and the church was consecrated on 9 December 1831. Due to mining subsidence at St Mary, Holy Trinity became the parish church until St Mary reopened in 1846.

The chancel was tactfully enlarged in 1886-7. Major repairs were undertaken 1977-81. The church was further reordered in 1996 by Jack Cotterill of Norman & Dawbarn.

Lewis Vulliamy (1791-1870), the architect, was a pupil of Sir Robert Saville and enjoyed a highly successful career in London. Holy Trinity is one of many Gothic churches he designed in the 1830s. He is best remembered for grand houses, such as Westonbirt and Dorchester House, Mayfair.