Church of Holy Trinity

Church of Holy Trinity

This is a large parish church built of snecked sandstone with tooled ashlar dressings, quoins, and a deep tiled roof with swept eaves. The plan comprises a nave, chancel, north-west tower, south-west porch, and twin transepts to the north and south.

The south porch is narrow with a very steeply pitched roof. It features a narrow pointed-arched doorway with wide chamfers and chunky mouldings, with double doors. The south nave contains a range of four windows of narrow pointed paired lancets. The paired south-east transept gables are separated by a buttress with offsets and have roofs similar to the porch. They feature long paired lights with decorative quatrefoils with face stops in the apex, and a south-east window of paired lancets.

The chancel has a deep plinth and an east window of three cusped lights set back within a moulded surround under a deep hood. Matching twin gables are present on the north transepts, with a prominent chimney rising from the north-east frontage. On the north transept walls there is an asymmetrical arrangement of lancets at different levels, with an apex trefoil to the right and a narrow cusped arched doorway to the left. The north nave has two wide blank arches, each containing a lancet.

The tower, unusually sited at the north-west, is particularly decorative. Its belfry storey comprises an embattled parapet, corner gargoyles, a Lombard frieze, and is surmounted by a pyramidal roof capped with a weather vane. The two-storey ringing chamber has heavy louvred six-leaf roundels and below these are triple lights with pointed ordered arches and shafts. Very narrow lancets serve the stairs and tower chambers below at two levels. A tiny shouldered doorway at the north-west is set below a stringcourse and within the high battered plinth. Tall pilaster corner buttresses reach to belfry level. The north-west corner of the nave has high lancets and a trefoil-headed doorway below. The west front is unexpectedly deep because of falling ground and features triple lancets with quatrefoils above. At basement level there is a range of five small arched lights.

The interior is rendered with exposed dressings. The nave roof is panelled and undivided into bays. The north side shows the wide blind or blocked arches with infilled lancets seen on the exterior. The chancel arch is pointed with heavy mouldings, a slender shaft to the outer orders, and a corbel to the inner order.

An unusual filigree brass pulpit of 1888 is located adjacent to the north side, and there is a square font. At the east end of the nave, the archways to the transepts do not match. A wide four-centred arch to the south, supported by fluted corbels, leads to a Lady Chapel formed from the two transept units, each with a separate wooden roof divided by a deep cross beam. The original high altar was moved here. To the north, the transept units are occupied by the organ chamber to the west and a sacristy and vestry to the east.

The chancel sanctuary has a decorative tiled floor. On the east wall is an unusually lettered brass monument to Reverend George Thomas, the founder, who died in 1860, an elaborate three-bay brass monument to the Thomas family, and other brasses to family members traditionally from Llanbradach, with a further group on the west side of the chancel arch. Chancel panelling was made by a woodwork master at a local school in the mid-twentieth century.

The stained glass includes work probably contemporary with the building in early French Gothic style at the west end, with similar glass in the nave. The south-east lancets are by Lavers and Barraud. The east window was made by Henry Holiday and manufactured by Powell's.