Church of The Holy Trinity

Church of The Holy Trinity

A mid-nineteenth-century church in early Decorated style with a slightly Germanic character. The building is laid out on a cruciform plan with a central tower and spire, nave, chancel, and two short transepts. The chancel roof is lower than those of the nave and transepts. A double-gabled vestry projects to the north of the chancel, and a porch projects to the south of the nave. The south elevation fenestration of nave, transept and chancel is symmetrical.

The walls are built in randomly coursed local sandstone with lighter coloured stone used for door and window dressings and tracery. Ashlar stonework is deployed in buttresses, quoins and porch gable copings. The original pointing survives on the east, north and west sides and on the tower, though the south side has been less successfully repointed. The roofs are steeply pitched with light-red tiling, restored. They are slightly sprocketted out at the eaves and the verges are moderately projected, with soffit boarding and exposed purlin-ends. Small cast-iron apex-crosses mark the east and west ends. The rainwater goods have been replaced in square section. The spire rises in two stages and is now clad in copper, with a weathervane.

The porch features an equilateral outer arch with label moulding on mitre and crown stops. The gable is coped with kneelers and a stone apex wheel-cross. The inner door is boarded with heavy ironwork. The nave windows are generally of trefoil-headed lancet form with labels on block stops. A small round window appears at high level in the west gable. The north windows lack labels. One south window in the nave and one in the chancel are of quasi-traceried type with two lights and a roundel. The east window and those of the south transept are traceried, of three lights with roundels. The north transept has a single three-light window. The east window has additional cusping to the roundels. The tower carries two trefoil-headed lancet windows at high level on each face. Louvred belfry openings appear in the lower stage of the spire, now copper-clad.

The interior of the nave is aisleless with two ranges of simply carved pine pews. The roof is of five bays with arch-braced high-collar-beam trusses, V-struts above the collars, and brace-feet standing on corbels. Exposed purlins and rafters rise as tall ashlars. At the head of each side wall is a painted decorative frieze. A simple two-order chamfered arch of full width without imposts leads to the crossing. The transepts are short, occupying one structural bay each, with similar arches to the crossing but with octagonal imposts. Painted friezes decorate the walls. The crossing is high and very light, with two arch-braced beams supporting the bellchamber and spire. A boarded pine ceiling with a central bell hatch tops the space. The chancel arch is slightly lower and narrower, consisting of two orders carried on clustered colonnettes, with painted verse above.

The chancel is short and wide with a three-bay roof of arch-braced collar-beam trusses with V-struts above. The floor is of mosaic with large tesserae. Choir-stalls with carved openwork fronts and carved openwork altar rails are present. The oak altar features linenfold carving, and the reredos has an openwork top with a dedicatory inscription dated 1950. The organ and vestry occupy the north side and have a double-barrel timber ceiling.

A carved and painted stone pulpit stands at the left of the chancel arch. An octagonal font on four colonnettes is positioned at the west of the nave.

Nineteenth-century stained glass fills the chancel windows, including one window to Charles and Jane Nevill dated around 1895. Good twentieth-century stained glass appears in the nave, with one nave window serving as a war memorial. The transepts contain plain glass.