Trinity Methodist Church

Trinity Methodist Church

This Methodist church is oriented east-west with the altar at the east end. The building comprises a nave of four bays with three-bay aisles to north and south, north and south transepts, and a chancel with organ chamber to the north. A tower stands in the south angle between the south transept and aisle. A semi-octagonal porch projects from the west end. Between the tower and chancel lies the minister's vestry, with a larger choir vestry to the north of the organ chamber, connected to the minister's vestry by a corridor behind the altar. An attached two-storey hall is positioned to the east.

The church is constructed in grey-brown stone with bathstone dressings and slate roofs, with some shafts in polished granite. The hall is in grey stone with bathstone dressings; the rear elevation features dressings and quoins in yellow brick.

The west front displays a five-cusped-light window and a semi-octagonal porch with segmentally headed two-light windows. The south elevation features a clerestory with three segmentally headed four-light windows, each with smaller inner lights. Below these, the aisle has its west bay set at an angle and is topped by a stepped crenellated parapet. Three two-light segmentally headed windows articulate the elevation, separated by stepped buttresses. The south transept gable contains a large four-light window with bathstone panelling in the apex.

The pinnacled tower has buttresses and a parapet decorated with quatrefoil patterns. It rises in three stages, surmounted by a broach spire with lucarnes and an iron weathervane. The bell stage has two two-light windows with quatrefoil panelling below, and a band of foiled panel work beneath. Below this is a broad four-cusped-light window. The lowest tower stage features an entrance doorway flanked by polished pink granite shafts with floral bathstone capitals, and boarded doors with ornate iron hinges.

The north elevation follows the south elevation pattern but includes a blocked doorway in the west side of the transept. To the east stands a gabled vestry with a three-light window and a small porch with a blocked segmentally headed doorway.

The church and hall stand within an enclosure with a low wall punctuated by octagonal gatepiers with bathstone Gothic capstones. To the right of the west front of the church is a Portland stone cross War Memorial.

The west porch is separated from the nave by an oak traceried screen. The three-bay nave has a raked wood-block floor. The arcades are carried on octagonal pink sandstone shafts of St Bees' stone, with foiled panel work in the spandrels. The west crossing piers consist of three grouped octagonal shafts. A panelled and boarded coved ceiling, supported by wall-posts on floral corbels, spans the nave; the transept roofs are pointed wooden vaults. The north transept features a broad organ-chamber arch and paired Gothic arches with tracery above to the vestry. The south transept contains two Gothic doorways to the vestry and tower porch. The chancel has a tall arch to the organ chamber to the north, with a hoodmould and inset granite shafts. The east end displays a wooden Gothic reredos featuring a reproduction of Leonardo's 'Last Supper'. A polychrome Italian marble pulpit is positioned in the chancel.

The hall's south-facing main elevation has two storeys. The first floor features a central broad six-light Perpendicular-style window flanked by lower two-light windows to the aisles. The ground floor, partially obscured by a modern brick extension, contains a four-light Perpendicular window and doorways with three-centred heads. The rear elevation facing Woodland Place has camber-headed sash windows. The ground floor interior has been modernised. The first floor hall comprises four bays of round-headed arches supported on cast-iron columns, with a longitudinal lantern featuring Tudor arches.