Church Of The Holy Trinity

A parish church of the early 15th century with a 19th-century vestry, finished in roughcast rendered stone with a slate roof. The building comprises a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, a west tower, a south porch, and a vestry situated at the east end of the north aisle.

The aisles are lit by identical Perpendicular windows of four ogee-headed cinquefoiled lights, with four windows on each side. The east end of the north aisle wall contains a further 3-light window of slightly different design, matching that of the south chancel window. The mouldings of these two windows correspond with the 3-light windows at the east end of each aisle, which differ in having a large rose in the arch head. The south aisle window is mainly a 19th or 20th-century replica. The north chancel window and the west window of the south aisle are simpler, featuring two ogee-headed cinquefoil lights. The east window has five lights, matching the design of all but one of the aisle windows.

The three-stage tapering tower has a weathering string-course above each stage and battlements at the top, each surmounted by a pinnacle with small shrines in each face. These rise from corner stones with tapered tops; some reworking may have occurred. Each face is flanked by a buttress set off each corner. The east buttress of the south face displays in the second stage an ornate empty niche with an ogee head and finial; a remnant of a similar niche appears in the west buttress. The centre of the south face contains a five-sided stair turret with slit windows rising to a crenellated top. The west face has a doorway with a two-centred arch and heavy three-quarter-round moulding, set in a rectangular moulded frame. Above it is a straight-headed early 16th-century window of two segmental-headed lights with a hood-mould having square carved terminals. The second stage contains a single-light window with a two-centred arch. The belfry has a two-light opening with two-centred heads in all but the south face, which has two similar single-light glazed windows flanking the stair turret.

The north aisle has at its west end a rectangular stair turret leading to the aisle roof, with a splayed corner. The north wall contains a five-sided stair turret to the former rood loft, with the outline of a small blocked doorway with round head visible to its west. In the south wall of the chancel is a priest's doorway, moulded with a two-centred arch.

The south porch is two-storeyed with angle-buttresses and a three-sided stair turret in the angle with the south aisle. The inner and outer doorways are moulded with two-centred arches. The interior contains stone seats on either side and a white-limestone fan-vault with trefoil-headed and quatrefoil panels, the ribs carved with four angels. The upper storey has a straight-headed two-light window with hood-mould, the lights with ogee cinquefoiled heads and carved spandrels. Both aisles and porch have battlements, carried round the stair turret.

The interior of the nave features five two-centred arches on each side. The piers are of diamond section with an attached column at each angle and wave-mouldings between, the capitals carved with foliage. Piscinas appear at the east end of the south wall of the south aisle (with a two-centred arch) and in the south wall of the chancel (ogee-headed), both cinquefoiled. In the north wall of the north aisle, stairs to the former rood loft have a plain round-headed doorway below and a chamfered doorway with a two-centred arch above. A two-centred tower arch has chamfered imposts. The aisle roofs are flat with moulded intersecting beams. The nave and chancel have a wagon-roof, possibly restored (the parish register notes the roof was first ceiled in 1807).

The fittings include coloured medieval glass in the heads of most windows. A medieval wood rood screen spans the nave and aisles, with parclose screens of slightly different design across the eastern arch of each aisle. The rood screen has two-centred arches across the nave and three across each aisle. These arches contain four ogee-headed cinquefoiled lights with corresponding panels beneath carrying an almost complete set of Pre-Reformation painted figures. The head-beams are carved with fruit and foliage. Each parclose screen has a doorway with a segmental head to the east and two windows to the west with three ogee-headed cinquefoiled lights under a two-centred arch.

An octagonal font has a plain bowl, each face of the shaft bearing a cinquefoil-headed panel. A seven-sided elaborately carved wood pulpit of the early 17th century stands on an imitation medieval base (said to be made up of pier casings from the rood screen). The pulpit has a shaft carved with foliage in the centre of each of five faces, flanked by trefoil-headed panels. A complete set of medieval pews fills the nave, eight on each side of the centre gangway; the bench-ends are carved with trefoil-headed panels. These are enclosed by a complete set of early 18th-century box-pews with raised-and-ovolo-moulded panels.

An early 17th-century ogee-shaped wooden cover tops the font. A slate monument plaque mounted in a limestone frame on the north wall of the chancel commemorates William Peter of Tornewton (died 1614) and his wife (died 1600). The flanking piles are decorated with pendants of ribbons and a skull, with a round arch, scrolls, and coats-of-arms.