Church Of The Holy Trinity

Church of the Holy Trinity, Weymouth

An Anglican parish church dating from 1834, with major extension and reorientation carried out in 1886–87. The original church was designed by Philip Wyatt, with a contribution of £1,100 towards costs given by Reverend George Chamberlaine, the founder. The extensive enlargement of 1886–87 was designed by GR Crickmay at an estimated cost of £4,000, though the final cost reached approximately £7,000, including a high retaining wall to the south.

The building is constructed of Portland ashlar on the street frontage, with the remainder in dressed and squared or rubble Portland stone with cream limestone dressings. The roofs are slate. It is designed in Perpendicular style.

The plan comprises a nave with gallery, east and west transepts, a shallow chancel, a deep lobby with flanking octagonal spaces (one containing a staircase), a west porch, vestry, and undercroft. A central fleche is shown on the Crickmay perspective drawing.

The gabled street front to the north features a large seven-light deep-set window in a four-centred arch with a splayed weathered sill, above a four-centred doorway with multiple orders leading to a pair of plank doors under a square label course. The entrance sits on a flight of divided steps with external balustrade, carried over low-level pavement on a brick half-barrel vault. On each side of the low-pitched gable with saddle-back coping and embellished frieze stands a square turret with paired slender buttresses; the upper section of each buttress is set diagonally and cropped at the parapet. (The Crickmay contract drawings of 29 March 1886 show these as square buttresses continuing as pinnacles.) On the right return, the turret steps up to a lofty square buttress with pinnacle and a pinnacled statue niche at low level. A small two-light window appears at low level on this elevation.

The west (liturgical south) front displays paired gables over large five-light windows, with two additional windows in the south wall. To the left are two three-light windows set high in the nave, beneath a casement-mould eaves with ball-flower decoration, separated by a dividing buttress rising to a pinnacle. In the re-entrant angle sits a gabled porch covering a pointed doorway, with a small two-light window on the return wall; the gable has saddle-back coping and panelled decoration in its upper part. To the right of the transept is a flat-roofed vestry beneath a plain wall with a two-light window, with a flight of steps descending to nave level to its right.

The south gable wall is in rubble banded with ashlar, topped by saddle-back coping. A lower projecting gabled chancel projects from this wall, containing a five-light window set very close to the high retaining wall carrying Trinity Terrace. The east front, in rubble banded with ashlar, displays a four-light and seven-light window to the transept, the larger in a slightly projecting gable, and a four-light window to the right in the nave.

Inside the lobby are broad four-centred arched openings with panelled glazed doors, approached via three steps. The gallery stairs are to the left; to the right was originally the baptistry. The nave has plain plastered walls and a two-bay arcade on each side to the transepts, supported on lofty piers with high bases and moulded four-centred arches. A plain chancel bay narrows to the sanctuary under a similar arch. The floor is laid in square red tile or wood block. The low-pitched panelled ceiling spans nine bays with a central ventilator and moulded ribs enclosing small panels decorated with florets. A raised bay occurs over the main north window. The gallery has a painted panelled front and has been underbuilt with a wall in acoustic tiling; the original set-back supporting wall retains a series of four-centred arches. On each side of the nave is a deep arched recess with brass memorial tablets.

The west transept features a double ceiling on arch-braced principals, carried centrally to a traceried beam with moulded soffit, supported on bold brackets carved with stone angels. The contract drawings indicate a ten by six inches rolled steel joist in the valley above the beam. The chancel contains linenfold panelling of 1923, and the sanctuary has Gothic open tracery screens above small-scale panelling with a central triptych.

The fittings include plain pews, an alabaster font of 1888, an octagonal pulpit of 1903 in alabaster with figures, a brass lectern, a wrought-iron chancel rail, and a Gothic triptych reredos with 3:5:3 panels and a central Crucifixion. The triptych was provided by public subscription in memory of Canon Weldon in 1918; the riddel posts date from 1950. Various memorials and inscriptions are distributed throughout, including one in the east transept to Francis Briggs Sowter, vicar from 1884–1890, noting that 'during which period this church was enlarged and transformed'. The earliest monument, in white marble to John Willimans (died 1836), is by Hellyer and stands in the east transept.

The great window above the entrance contains heraldic shields with a central feature bearing a Hebrew inscription reading 'God the Father'. In the east transept, most of the glass was lost through bomb damage in the Second World War; the altar painting here is based on a Van Dyke composition.

Historically, the parish originally fell within the Bristol Diocese but returned to Salisbury in 1836. It was formerly part of Wyke Regis. A Chapel of St Nicholas once stood above and south of the present building; a section of one of its pillars is preserved in the undercroft. The first church was oriented normally, but by 1885 was deemed too small. When enlarged, it was reoriented with the altar to the south. An initial scheme agreed between builder A Clarke and the Committee was abandoned in favour of an alternative proposal by Crickmay. The renewed church was opened on 12 April 1887. The original church had galleries at both ends of the nave. The building holds considerable architectural merit and is important in the townscape of Weymouth, occupying a significant position on the axis of the Town Bridge.