Church Of The Holy Trinity (Church Of England)

Church of The Holy Trinity

A Grade I listed parish church at Weston, primarily dating from the 12th century with substantial 15th-century additions and later alterations.

The original 12th-century church was built as a cruciform structure with a central crossing tower, apsidal transept chapels, and presumably an apsidal chancel. In the 15th century, a south aisle was added, together with a south porch, clerestory windows, and new windows throughout. The south transept was rebuilt as part of the south aisle. The chancel was rebuilt in 1840 by Thomas Smith for Reverend Benjamin Donne. A major restoration took place in 1867, when the upper part of the tower was reconstructed, omitting the former tall lead-covered spire. A vestry was added in 1880.

The church is constructed primarily of flint rubble. The nave, south aisle, and porch are roughcast with limestone and clunch dressings. The tower is faced in uncoursed flint pebbles, while the north transept is built of coursed tuffa and field flints with squared limestone quoins and window dressings. The chancel is built of red brick, formerly entirely stuccoed but now retaining only stucco dressings. The ornamental red brick vestry stands to the northeast. All roofs are slated.

The building comprises a square-ended Neo-Norman chancel, a tall crenelated crossing tower, a north transept, a tall nave, a south aisle, a south porch, and a northeast vestry.

The chancel shares the same floor level as the crossing and features a steep pitched roof of three bays with arched-braced hammer-beam open timber work in the pattern of the Inns of Court, decorated with early Renaissance-style carved pendants and stone corbels. The floor is laid with an elaborate patterned tile design incorporating encaustic tile roundels. On each side are two round-headed windows with mid-19th-century stained glass. A stone bullseye window sits above a round-headed south door in the middle bay. A round-headed chamfered north door to the vestry stands opposite, above which is a wall monument to John Fairclough, died 1630, inscribed in Latin. The monument takes the form of a marble aedicule with panelled pilasters and a broken pediment with stepped armorial cartouches. The east window consists of three lancets with stained glass by Messrs Powell.

The central tower is 13½ feet square and narrower than both the chancel and nave. It stands on four unmoulded Norman crossing arches carried on axe-dressed ashlar piers with chamfered plinths and deep impost bands of unusual form, which are deeply moulded and divided into upper and lower parts. The abaci of the two eastern piers are decorated: the northeast pier with billet bands and the southeast pier with plain scallops to the chancel arch but with alternate plain and beaded crescents to the former south transeptal arch. The upper part of the tower is rebuilt with a slit window on each face at the middle stage. An external offset marks the transition to the narrower top stage, which carries large two-light blunt-pointed belfry openings with central mullion and cusped tracery in the head on each face. A corbelled battlemented parapet crowns the tower. A door to the spiral staircase in the northeast angle is carried higher in a crenelated octagonal turret topped with a vane. A clock face is set in the west belfry opening.

The tall narrow steep-roofed Norman north transept has thick walls. A round-headed 12th-century small window with deep internal splays sits centrally in the north and west walls, while a wide round-arched recess in the east wall formerly housed the arch into an apse. Two tie-beams carry convex-curved queen-posts supporting a boarded ceiling of half-octagonal rafter roof.

The lofty wide nave has a low-pitched roof. Fifteenth-century grotesque stone corbels support wallposts, braces, and tie-beams of three bays. Sub-principals, principals, and moulded longitudinal members intersect in large carved and painted floral bosses. The floor is laid with chequered black and red tiles. Windows are set unusually high. Two Perpendicular windows appear in the north wall: a three-light window near the east end and a two-light opening above a blocked north door, both with pointed segmental heads and tracery. A small Neo-Norman wall monument between these windows commemorates Hannah Pryor, died 1850, in the form of an aedicule. Three square-headed clerestory openings over the south arcade now open into the south aisle. The south arcade comprises three bays with two-centred arches of two hollow chamfered orders with hollows between, carried on octagonal piers with moulded caps and bases.

An octagonal oak pulpit with open arcading sits on an octagonal moulded base. It was moved here in 1840 from the Church of St. Mary the Less, Cambridge, where it is said to have been used by Jeremy Taylor. A large copper repousé war memorial tablet stands on the right of the east crossing arch.

The north doorway is visible externally between buttresses. It has a 15th-century two-centred arched head with drip and two hollow chamfered orders, now infilled with boarding. A stone plinth runs beneath the nave with a diagonal buttress at the west end. A three-light similar 15th-century window sits at the west.

The Perpendicular south aisle has a six-bay 19th-century timber roof supported on tortured grotesque carved stone corbels. A 15th-century three-light east window with tracery and three two-light windows in the south wall feature cinquefoil lights, segmental pointed heads, and tracery with central mullion. A 15th-century piscina near the east end has a wide hollow chamfered two-centred head and a projecting canted moulded base with cinquefoil drain. The eastern part of the aisle is wider where it incorporates the former south transept.

At the west end of the aisle is a 15th-century font with an octagonal bowl. Each face bears a square sunk panel with a quatrefoil and central fleuron. Multiple mouldings ornament the corbel stage over an octagonal trefoil-panelled shaft and a wide octagonal base.

The 15th-century south doorway has a two-centred arch with drip and moulded chamfer of ogee-roll-ogee profile. A wide, tall porch with stone benches on each side features pointed segmental rear-arches to two-light cinquefoil windows on both sides, with sunk spandrels. The flat ceiling is fitted with heavy moulded ribs forming four panels, decorated with heavy painted bosses at corners and intersections. The outer arch carries two orders similar to the south door but with half-octagonal jamb shafts and moulded caps to the inner order. Doors were inserted in the arch in the 20th century.

The small north vestry has gauged and moulded red brickwork designed to be left exposed. It features set-back corner buttresses, unlike the earlier chancel which was originally stuccoed.