Church Of The Holy Trinity

Church of the Holy Trinity, Manor Road

Built in 1866-7 by architects E Habershon and E P Loftus Brock, this is a mid-Victorian Gothic Revival church designed in the early 14th-century style. The church is constructed of flint-faced walls with Bath stone dressings, a limestone spire, and tiled roofs, with the chancel roof featuring polychrome diapering.

The church plan comprises a western steeple, nave, north and south aisles, a south porch, a short chancel with a three-sided apse, a north vestry or organ chamber, and a north parish centre. The impressive western steeple is a local landmark facing the main road. The three-stage tower has angle buttresses on its western face, a western doorway with a two-light window above, and belfry openings of two-lights with small quatrefoils in the heads. Immediately below the spire is a quatrefoil frieze. The spire has extremely small, low broaches and one tier of small lucarnes halfway up. The aisles sit beneath their own gables with buttresses featuring offsets to demarcate the bays. Windows display elaborate flowing tracery in early 14th-century style, comprising three- and four-light openings. There is no clerestory. The chancel windows continue this flowing tracery as two-light openings, with the chancel roof ridge set lower than the nave. The south porch is constructed of timber, now painted bright blue. The 19th-century vestry block on the north has been dwarfed by a large modern parish centre extending considerably northward.

The interior is characterized by its broad and low proportions, resulting from the substantial nave width, quite low arcades with short piers, a spreading chancel arch, and the absence of a clerestory. Walls are plastered and whitened. The four-bay nave has an arcade with round piers bearing foliage capitals. The arches feature one sunk quadrant moulding, with an order of red tiles set flush with the walling around the outer edge. The chancel arch spans virtually the entire eastern end of the nave, with the chancel remarkably short in length. The nave roof is arch-braced with crown-posts to the collar and reinforced with iron ties. The chancel roof is also arch-braced, while the aisle roofs have tie-beams and scissor-braces. The nave, aisle and choir floors are of red and black quarry tiles. Doorways have been cut beneath the tracery of the two northwest windows in the north aisle to provide entrances to the parish centre.

The principal fixtures include a fine alabaster font with a circular, chalice-shaped bowl set on eight detached grey-green marble shafts and an alabaster central pillar, said to date from about the mid-1920s. The pews are substantially complete with shaped ends retaining pew numbers. The communion rails, stalls and pulpit date from the mid-1920s, designed by Gerald Cogswell and carved by E Marus. An extensive collection of stained glass fills the church windows throughout.

The church was built by Samuel Simpson of Tottenham Court Road under a contract valued at £3,955. The design reflects the Low Church beliefs of its patron, Nathaniel Bridges, the lord of the manor, who funded the church as a memorial to his father, who died in June 1865. The breadth of the nave, shortness of the chancel and general absence of High Church Victorian fittings confirm this Low Church orientation. The main design is believed to be the work of Brock.

The parsonage to the northeast of the church was contracted for in July 1867, also designed by Habershon and Brock, and was complete by December 1870.

The area's development began in earnest following the opening of the railway in 1847 and land enclosure in 1853, with Nathaniel Bridges, the lord of the manor, as the prime mover. E P Loftus Brock was probably appointed as surveyor for the development of Bridges' land. Edward Habershon died in 1901 and had been in partnership with his brother William Gilbee Habershon (1818 or 1819-1891) until 1863. E P Loftus Brock (1833-95) joined their office in 1851 as managing clerk and became a partner from 1865, subsequently succeeding Edward Habershon on his retirement in 1879.

A 2002 parish centre was added to the church.