Church Of The Holy Trinity

Church of the Holy Trinity, Frogmore

Built in 1841-2 by the architects Scott and Moffatt, the Church of the Holy Trinity was constructed as a chapel of ease to St Stephen's church to serve the dispersed population of the parish. The church was consecrated on 14 October 1842 by the Bishop of London and originally provided seating for 462 people, including 344 free seats and a gallery for 60 children. The estimated construction cost was £2,200.

The church is designed throughout in the neo-Norman style, which enjoyed a brief period of popularity between approximately 1835 and 1845 before Gothic architecture became the dominant choice for Anglican church building. George Gilbert Scott, who later became the most successful church architect of the Victorian era, was in partnership with William Bonython Moffatt during this period. Scott went on to abandon the Norman style almost entirely in favour of Gothic, making this church a significant early work demonstrating his practice before this shift.

The building is constructed of flint-faced walls with dressings mainly of red brick and some stone, with slate roofs. It comprises a nave with north and south aisles, north and south transepts, a semi-circular apsed sanctuary, and a north vestry (which appears to be of later date than the original construction).

The west elevation faces the road and features a west doorway with one plain stepped order and another decorated with chevron ornament, flanked by nook-shafts with scalloped capitals. Above the doorway is a tall stage containing a high window flanked by narrow blind arches with brick diaper work decoration and stone nook-shafts. A bellcote rises through the gable with buttresses at its sides; the lower part has a large single arch now blocked by modern brickwork, whilst above is a two-light opening housing a single bell set beneath a superordinate arch. The bellcote is topped with an east-west gable. The aisles flank the nave, each with a west window featuring nook-shafts and a plain parapet concealing the lean-to roofs. The nave and aisles span four bays, with the aisle bays demarcated by shallow buttresses with sloping tops extending to the eaves. A clerestory above the nave contains single-light windows in each bay arranged in groups with pairs of blind arches either side. This arrangement continues on the west faces of the transepts, whose north and south elevations feature three tall windows of equal height. Above these are three graded arches, the central one now filled with modern brickwork. The church terminates in a semi-circular apse with tall one-light windows. A north vestry, seemingly of later date than the 1840s, stands to the north. A glazed porch covers the west entrance, and extensive plain red-brick parish rooms linked to the southeast of the church were added in the late twentieth century.

Internally, the church has been considerably altered. The walls are plastered and painted, mostly white with blue in the spandrels of the nave arcade and on the sanctuary walls. The piers and responds are painted beige. The nave has four bays with stepped arches and tall round piers featuring scalloped capitals and moulded bases. Similar arches and treatment extend to the transepts and chancel. Around 1968, the internal appearance was substantially transformed by the insertion of semi-circular barrel-vaulted roofs in the nave and transepts, which are cut through by the clerestory windows. The apse retains three original large ribs to the ceiling. The lower part of the sanctuary features blind arcading with scalloped capitals and heavy arch heads, above which are texts (evidently later than the 1840s) relating to the Eucharist, including "I am the Bread of Life". The wooden flooring throughout is late twentieth-century work, apparently laid over the nineteenth-century floor.

No significant fixtures or furnishings from the original nineteenth-century building survive other than an extensive collection of stained glass and the Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments, and Creed painted on the walls of the apse.

In front of the west entrance stands an attractive, broad timber Gothic lychgate dated 1891, leading onto the road.

The parish served by this church was originally part of St Stephen's parish, which around 1840 had a population of approximately 2,000 people spread across an area exceeding 8,000 acres, measuring five miles long by four miles broad. St Stephen's church, situated at the parish's extreme edge, was inconveniently remote from most parishioners and offered accommodation for only 450 people. Holy Trinity was therefore built to address this problem.

Alterations were carried out to the church between 1965 and 1968 by K A Williams. A late twentieth-century west porch and southeast link to parish rooms extend the complex further to the east.