Church of the Holy Trinity

A church of 1826 by Edward Garbett with additions and alterations by John Billing of 1845-1846 and further additions in the C20 and C21.

MATERIALS: the principal south elevation is of fine-tooled Bath Stone, while the east, west and north elevations are of red brick with stone dressings. The roof covering is slate. The front boundary wall has stone piers and modern concrete and iron/steel railings and gates.

PLAN: a north-south plan comprising a five-bay nave, chancel apse, side chapels and vestry with ritual East at the compass north end.

EXTERIOR: building with rendering of the Gothic Revival style under a steeply-pitched roof, with later additions on the north and east elevations breaking the symmetry of the plan. The principal elevation faces Oxford Road and comprises a symmetrically designed gable-end wall in fine-tooled stone. There are three arched doorways with splayed jambs, the central one being larger, each containing detached columns with simple moulded capitals, from which spring the mouldings forming the two-centred arch over each door. The three arches shared a hood mould, which runs across the entire length of the elevation. Each archway contains a finely-carved door under timber tracery windows. Above the doorways are three lancet windows, the central being taller, with a shared hood mould. At the apex of the roof pitch is a belfry corbelled out from the elevation containing a single bell. It has lost its spirelet. On either side of the elevation are embellished corner buttresses.

The east and west elevations each contain six lancet windows with leaded lights, with simple brick buttresses between each pair of windows. The rear (north) elevation is almost completely screened from the street. It comprises a simple brick gable end wall with a two-tier vestry under a pitched roof placed centrally on the elevation, with a rose window on the taller part. Adjoining the vestry to the west is a later extension under a monopitched roof containing a traceried, arched window on its west elevation. There is a plain single-storey extension at the north-east corner of the building.

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

INTERIOR: designed in a Gothic Revival style consisting of a five-bay nave with the galleries removed, a chancel apse and side chapels. There is a fine chancel screen by AWN Pugin, originally located at St Chad’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Birmingham, adapted and incorporated by R Gradidge in 1968-1969. Other fittings include a fine angular pulpit of 1706-1708 with fluted egg-cup base and a shaped and marbled organ of around 1780, both brought from the Church of All Saints, Oxford, and an upholstered Gothick chair of around 1826.