Church of Holy Trinity, Duncton

Church of Holy Trinity, Duncton

The Church of Holy Trinity is a rural church built in the early Decorated style between 1865 and 1866 by architect James Castle for Lord Leconfield. It is constructed of local random rubblestone with a plinth of coursed rubble and ashlar dressings. The roof is of clay tiles with fishscale bands, and wrought-iron cross finials crown the spire, porch and east end.

The church is without aisles, with a chancel that is slightly narrower and lower than the nave. A tower containing the vestry is positioned to the south-east; this arrangement mirrors the similarly sited towers of nearby churches at Petworth, Tillington and Lurgashall. A gabled porch with angle buttresses is located at the west end, to the south.

The tower is the church's most prominent feature, topped with a pyramidal spire with sprocketed eaves. The hollow-chamfered pointed doorway in the tower has a hoodmould with carved male and female headstops, and the planked door features foliate wrought-iron hinges. Above the doorway are arched blind lights punched with quatrefoils—three to the south and paired to the west and east—linked by mouldings with varied foliate stops. The belfry has flush angle buttresses and tall pointed trefoil-headed openings with louvers, with a deep moulded cornice supporting the roof eaves above.

The porch doorway is pointed and flanked by nook shafts with stiff-leaf and flower capitals; the hoodmould has headstops. Above the doorway is a recessed cross. The porch retains its original wooden gates, and the door to the church has elaborate foliate wrought-iron hinges. The parish bier rests on the eaves within the porch.

The church has two pointed two-light windows with Geometrical tracery and plain hoodmoulds between the tower and porch, separated by a buttress; this window form is repeated in the north wall of the nave and on the west elevation. A trefoiled lancet window lights the chancel to the east of the tower. Above the single window in the west elevation is a small circular opening containing a cross within a quatrefoil. The large east window has intersecting tracery beneath a plain hoodmould, with angle buttresses to the east end. The north side has three windows between buttresses to the nave and two lancets to the chancel.

The interior is spare in character. The aisleless nave is separated from the chancel by a tall pointed arch with a convex outer and concave inner moulding and waterleaf forms to the bases. The timber roof over the nave is formed of coupled rafters with two ties and straight braces, creating an angular waggon roof; the chancel roof has curved braces. The nave floor is of black and red tiles with timber beneath the pews, while the chancel and sanctuary have polychromatic tiled floors.

A pointed arch to the south of the chancel contains the organ, built by A Gardner & Son of Arundel and restored in 2000. A narrow opening to the east of the organ leads to the vestry, lit by the quatrefoil openings in the first stage of the tower. The belfry is reached by the original ladder.

Stained glass in the east and west windows and in the sanctuary dates from the 1860s, with an 1870s memorial window in the chancel. The majority of the windows contain opaque diamond-leaded glass painted with alternating oak branches and the letters 'IHC'. The church's pine fittings and furnishings form a coherent and almost complete Gothic Revival group of modest type, largely original to the building. The altar with open trefoiled arches may be later. The altar rails have delicate trefoil tracery; the 1864 drawings show that rails with ironwork panels were originally envisaged. The simple pews have sweeping trefoil-topped ends. The choir stalls have curved ends with lozenge finials, missing their candle-holders. There is a chair and reading desk for both rector and curate, though the rector's chair is later. The pulpit, carved with oak leaves, dates from the 1930s. The lectern stands on a buttressed pedestal. The stone font has an octagonal basin punched with quatrefoils on a pedestal and an elaborate timber cover with Gothic detailing. By the door is a collection box in the shape of a Star of David, possibly later.

On the north wall is a brass war memorial plaque in a carved timber frame commemorating the men of Duncton, Upwaltham, Burton and Barlavington who served and died in the First World War. A stone Second World War memorial plaque is on the south wall.