Church Of Holy Trinity

The Church of Holy Trinity is a church of 1857, designed by John Norton. It is constructed from squared Pennant rubble with limestone dressings and a slate roof. The church is built in the Decorated Gothic Revival style. It features an aisled nave and a west tower. The east window of the chancel is tall, with reticulated tracery, angle buttresses with gablets and carved mythical animals, and octagonal shafts to crocketed pinnacles. A hemi-hexagonal vestry is located to the north, with a sprocketed roof and a three-window range to the south. The weather vane is a Celtic cross.

The aisles have five bays, separated by buttresses and containing three-light windows. The church has a carved corbel table and open traceried parapet. A steep porch is situated in the second bay from the west end, featuring an open lancet doorway with cluster responds, a 20th-century east doorway, stone benches, and encaustic tiles.

The three-stage tower has angle buttresses, a splayed lancet west door with three orders and ball flowers, an ogee hood with crockets and foliate finial and bishop’s and king’s head stops, and a two-leaf door with traceried upper panels. The windows on the first floor are three-light. A clock with a wooden hood on brackets is situated on the west side, with belfry lights featuring open tracery, a corbel table, an open traceried parapet, buttress pinnacles, and gargoyles. A stair tower is located in the corner with the north aisle. The tower is topped with a crocketed hexagonal broach spire, lucarnes, and a metal cross finial.

Inside, the three-bay chancel is open to the north organ chamber and features marble cluster columns with painted foliate capitals, an alabaster reredos, and a marble floor. An arched roof includes moulded panels and angel corbels. The five-bay nave has piers with attached shafts and moulded capitals; its roof has moulded panels and angel corbels. The arch-braced nave roof has wall posts to carved corbels, while the aisle roofs are cross-braced. A west arch leads to a narthex. Fittings include three rows of choir stalls in the chancel with angel and poppy heads, a stone pulpit with ramped, curved steps, and an alabaster font on brown marble shafts decorated with ogee arches and angels. A stained-glass window in the south chancel, designed by Kempe in 1887, is present. The church is prominently positioned and recognized as one of Bristol's finest Victorian churches. Norton was a notable local Ecclesiological architect, and this church is especially valued given that several of his other works have been demolished.