Church Of Holy Trinity

Church of Holy Trinity, Pleshey

The Church of Holy Trinity at Pleshey comprises a medieval core substantially rebuilt in the 19th century. The original collegiate church was built around 1394 to serve a college founded that year by Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, who also held Pleshey Castle. The college comprised nine priests including the master, plus two clerks and two boy choristers, later augmented by three more priests and six poor men. The college was dissolved at the Reformation, after which the parishioners purchased the nave to serve as their parish church. The choir was demolished, though the tower initially remained.

The nave fell into disrepair and was rebuilt in brick in 1708. Around 1750, Samuel Tuffnell, a diplomat and MP, rebuilt the tower and added a chancel. In 1868, the church was almost wholly rebuilt by the architect Frederic Chancellor of Chelmsford and London, preserving only the medieval crossing arches. Chancellor was a well-known church architect who worked widely in Essex, London and elsewhere.

The church is constructed of flint pebbles and stone rubble with stone dressings, timber porch, and tiled roofs. The plan is cruciform, comprising an unaisled nave with north porch, central tower with north and south transepts and northeast stair turret, chancel with vault underneath, and southeast vestry.

The exterior is very tall and French in proportions with dynamic composition and massing typical of Chancellor's work. All windows display late 13th-century style Geometric tracery with foiled circles above cusped, pointed lights without ogees, with outer arches featuring chequer board flint flush work. The chancel is tall with diagonal buttresses and a four-light east window; it has no other fenestration. The north and south transepts have diagonal buttresses and two-light windows on each face. The north transept has a north door with a hood mould with head stops. The central crossing tower has slight offsets on its north and south faces topped by bands of carved quatrefoils, with a clock set into the north band. The parapet steps up at the corners. Below the parapet is a moulded string course with gargoyles at the corners. Two-light louvered belfry openings appear in each face. The northeast stair turret is octagonal, topped by a conical stone roof with a band of openwork quatrefoils. The southeast vestry has a lean-to roof and is connected to the crossing tower by a giant flying buttress. It has a small three-light south window with a plain square head and unfoiled lights, and a chamfered east door.

The nave has diagonal buttresses, four two-light windows on each side, and a three-light west window. The north porch is timber on dwarf stone walls with a double arcade of short columns featuring moulded capitals and bases on either side. The outer opening has arched braces, and the gable has bargeboards pierced with quatrefoils.

The interior is plastered and painted. The east and west crossing arches are of two chamfered orders, the outer continuous, the inner on polygonal responds with moulded capitals and bases. The west arch to the nave has a further large outer arch. The north and south crossing arches to the transepts are similar but the inner orders stand on moulded corbels. The nave and chancel roofs are arch-braced with braces descending to moulded stone corbels, with scissor-braced common rafters. The transepts have common rafter roofs.

Most of the fittings were installed in 1868 in late 13th-century Gothic style matching the rebuilt exterior. The chancel reredos has trefoiled arches under gables with crocketted finials extending across the entire east wall, the arches standing on polished marble shafts with moulded bases and carved capitals. The church has 19th-century timber communion rails with short round posts, shaft rings and moulded capitals. Choir stalls feature shaped ends, poppy heads and openwork fronts with rows of quatrefoils. The font has a deep circular bowl decorated with carved roundels on short marble shafts and a deep circular base. Nave benches have convex shouldered ends on short circular timber shafts. Stained glass in the east and south transept south windows was installed in 1868 by O'Connor.

The nave contains the tops of two former altar tombs of the 15th century. One has indents for figures of a bareheaded man in armour and a priest separated by a column, dating circa 1480–90. The other has indents for a man and a woman, probably Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham (died 1460) and his wife Katherine (died 1480). The chancel contains several wall monuments to members of the Tuffnell family, including Samuel Tuffnell (died 1758), a marble bust on a shallow chest with a grey marble obelisk behind and flanking urns, attributed to Henry Cheere. Sir William Joliff (died 1749), Tuffnell's uncle and benefactor, is commemorated by an inscription panel below an urn with an obelisk lavishly carved with flowers and cherubs, also perhaps by Cheere.