Church Of The Holy Trinity

The Church of the Holy Trinity is an urban parish church dating from 1848 to 1849, designed by George Gilbert Scott in the Decorated style. It comprises a nave, chancel, a north aisle with a Lady Chapel, and a large bellcote. The church was built to provide an Anglican place of worship for Headington Quarry, a hamlet in need of Christian support.

The exterior is constructed from coursed rubble limestone with ashlar detailing, using stone from Quarry Farm Pit, and features red tile roofs. The nave has two-light and lancet windows, with a tall porch on the south side. The west end includes two windows, a double bellcote, and diagonal buttresses. The low north aisle has squat, square-headed windows designed to resemble those of the late medieval period. A single-storeyed, flat-roofed vestry was added in the 20th century, extending north from the east end of the aisle. The chancel has the same height as the nave, with two two-light windows and a low door to the south, and diagonal buttresses and a three-light window to the east.

The interior has undergone little alteration, aside from the addition of the Lady Chapel at the east end of the north aisle in the 1990s. Features include a limestone arcade and chancel arch, along with window surrounds, the rest of the interior being plastered and limewashed. The church contains a stone pulpit and font, and stained glass in the east window by Sir Ninian Comper. Plain wooden benches are found in the nave and aisle.

Notable parishioners have included the novelist C.S. Lewis and his brother Warren, commemorated by a plaque and a Narnia-themed window consecrated in 1991. Both brothers, along with William Merry Kimber (father of the English Morris dance tradition), and eye surgeon Robert Doyne, are buried in the churchyard.

This church represents an early commission by George Gilbert Scott, a prominent figure in the Victorian Gothic Revival, and is an assured design evoking a late medieval building. It holds further historical significance as an example of a 19th-century evangelical church-building campaign.