Church of the Holy Trinity

Church of the Holy Trinity, Hempton

This is a Grade II listed church on Dereham Road, Hempton Green, built in 1856 by John Henry Hakewell for the Reverend Charles St. Denys Moxon, the first Vicar. The church was extended in 1954 to designs by John P. Chaplin of Norwich. The original building consists of a chancel constructed in knapped flint with ashlar dressings. The 1954 extension is largely of re-used ashlar and knapped flint salvaged from the Church of St. Michael-at-Thorn in Norwich, which had been bombed during the Second World War. Both parts have plain tile roofs.

The church was originally designed and built as a chancel that was itself a complete place of worship, with provision for the addition of a nave at a later date. The chancel arch was constructed and fitted with blocking that could be easily removed. The 1954 extension and completion used an ingenious design. The nave is almost square in plan overall and is divided into nave and aisles by a pair of very large opposing two-centred arches, flanked by small pedestrian-sized arches that form the arcades. The south aisle serves as a side chapel dedicated to St. Michael, in recognition of the destroyed Norwich church. The north aisle is enclosed to form the vestry, with the organ loft positioned above. The entire extension is covered with a single transverse roof that joins the extended roof of the chancel and descends toward the ground at the sides.

The chancel exterior is in Middle Pointed Gothic style, divided into three bays by buttresses with set-offs. The east end has angle buttresses and a three-light east window with Geometric style bar tracery. Below the window is a panel with a recessed trefoil. The north side has three two-light windows with plate tracery and central trilobe, while the south side has two, all set under relieving arches of white brick alternating with knapped flint. The priest's door on the south side is inscribed "My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer" and has a moulded string course that extends around the doorway to form a hood mould.

The nave has a pair of entrances in the re-entrant angles between the chancel and nave, featuring Arts and Crafts style boarded doors with small square lights of leaded glazing. The entire extension has plinths decorated with re-used flushwork designs from St. Michael-at-Thorn. The north gable-end is largely of brick, flanked by slightly projecting sections of flint, and incorporates a re-used cusped lancet above two two-light rectangular windows beneath segmental relieving arches that light the vestry. The west facade is of brick with one central gabled opening, slightly projecting, and a re-used two-light panel-traceried window beneath a three-centred arch. The south and principal gable-end is of knapped flint with two re-used panel-traceried windows slightly recessed and arched over with brick projecting segmental arches of several orders. The gable is surmounted by a massive crucifix in bronze. The roof is topped by a tall louvred bell-cote with a pyramidal roof.

The chancel interior features an arch-braced roof of three bays with braces onto wall posts in the form of colonnettes. The slightly raised easternmost bay is preceded by a painted suspended rood carved by a Ukrainian former prisoner of war. The sanctuary is marked by rafters in the eastern bay that are gold-coloured with stencilled decoration. A fine reredos displays a coloured marble cross flanked by elaborate glazed tiles featuring a Lamb of God in a quatrefoil design, with an inscribed memorial stone below. Coloured tiles extend up the east wall to dado height. A curtained tabernacle is positioned to the north and a piscina to the south. Twentieth-century Stations of the Cross are present. The windows feature diamond quarries with painted decorative designs and contrasting brightly coloured borders. The chancel arch has been left unplastered, exposing the weathering of the west wall that was exposed for nearly a century.

In the nave, tall brick two-centred arches divide the space into nave and aisles. The south aisle chapel dedicated to St. Michael has an altar made from re-used stone from the bell-cote of St. Michael-at-Thorn, pinnacle bases from the same church, and Y tracery from the ruined church at Pudding Norton. The reredos was painted on the old noticeboard of the Norwich church by the architect and given by him. The north aisle element is partly enclosed to form the vestry, but the exposed dividing arch and open organ loft above allow the space still to be read as part of the design. The entrance lobbies correspond with the eastern small arches, which may be read as part of an irregular pair of arcades. In conjunction with the western small arches, the whole design can be read as having aisles on all four sides and thus centrally planned. The roof structure of purlins and rafters is exposed.

Reverend Moxon was curate of nearby Fakenham before becoming a priest after graduating from Cambridge with a First in law in 1850. He was enthusiastic in the cause of education and improving the condition of the working man. He lived at The Grove, Hempton, and was appointed the first Vicar when the church was completed in 1856. Hempton had previously had a Priory of Austin Canons in the Middle Ages as well as a separate parish church, so Moxon was refounding an ancient foundation, as specifically noted in the newspaper report of the opening services. The church was largely paid for by Moxon and his friends, though there was a grant of £80 from the Incorporated Church Building Society, whose consulting architect became the architect of this church. From Moxon's writings it is clear that he wished to produce a church following the tenets of the Oxford Movement.

This church represents an important small rural example of a foundation emerging directly from the Oxford Movement, with ideals that have been maintained. The original element survives with very little alteration, retaining its reredos, patterned windows, stencilling to the sanctuary ceiling and other features. The church was designed to be completed later, and Chaplin's completion of the Victorian chancel provides an original solution to the need for additional accommodation. It pays tribute to the traditional basilican plan of nave and aisles divided by arcades in an unusual yet fitting design influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and possibly by Eric Gill's church at Gorleston-on-Sea. The extension is sensitive and historically significant, carefully complementing the scale and design of the original while reflecting post-war difficulties, particularly scarcity of building materials, by re-using materials salvaged from a bombed church and treating them with careful respect. The retention and sensitive augmentation of the Victorian church remains unusual and a significant testament to this later period, when contemporary design was often favoured for church building.