Church of the Holy Trinity

The Church of the Holy Trinity is a Gothic Revival style church built in 1826 by Edward Garbett, with subsequent additions and alterations by John Billing between 1845 and 1846, and further additions in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The church is constructed from fine-tooled Bath Stone to the south elevation, and red brick with stone dressings to the east, west, and north elevations. The roof is covered with slate. The front boundary wall features stone piers with modern concrete and iron/steel railings and gates.

The church follows a north-south plan, comprising a five-bay nave, a chancel apse, side chapels, and a vestry, with the altar positioned at the north end.

The exterior of the church is rendered in the Gothic Revival style and has a steeply-pitched roof. Later additions to the north and east elevations disrupt the original symmetry of the plan. The principal south elevation, facing Oxford Road, is a symmetrical gable-end wall constructed from fine-tooled stone, featuring three arched doorways with splayed jambs. The central doorway is larger, and all three are flanked by detached columns with simple moulded capitals supporting the two-centred arch mouldings. The arches share a single hood mould extending across the entire elevation, and each contains a finely carved door beneath timber tracery windows. Three lancet windows are placed above the doorways, the central one being taller and also sharing a hood mould. A belfry corbelled out from the elevation at the apex of the roof pitch once contained a single bell and a spirelet, which has since been lost. Embellished corner buttresses are positioned on either side of the elevation.

The east and west elevations each contain six lancet windows with leaded lights, separated by simple brick buttresses. The rear (north) elevation is largely hidden from the street and features a simple brick gable end wall with a two-tier vestry under a pitched roof centrally placed on the elevation, and a rose window. A later extension, with a monopitched roof and a traceried, arched window on its west elevation, adjoins the vestry to the west. A plain, single-storey extension is located at the north-east corner.

Along the southern boundary of the churchyard, abutting Oxford Road, is a concrete boundary wall incorporating original finely carved stone piers.

The interior design is Gothic Revival, consisting of a five-bay nave (with galleries now removed), a chancel apse, and side chapels. Notable features include a fine chancel screen designed by AWN Pugin, originally from St Chad’s Roman Catholic Cathedral in Birmingham and adapted by R Gradidge in 1968-1969. Further furnishings brought from the Church of All Saints, Oxford, encompass a pulpit from 1706-1708 with a fluted egg-cup base, and a shaped, marbled organ dating to around 1780. An upholstered Gothick chair from around 1826 is also present.