Church Of The Holy Trinity

Description

This information is taken from the statutory List as it was in 2001 and may not be up to date.

CHELTENHAM

SO9522NW PORTLAND STREET 630-1/10/694 (East side) 12/03/55 Church of the Holy Trinity

GV II*

Proprietary church. 1820-3 with later additions and alterations including c1970s west porch. Architect GA Underwood; with alterations to interior c1877 by J Middleton, when the galleries were rebuilt and the church rebenched; raised floor in the chancel and new choir furniture, 1915; Memorial Chapel to north furnished 1923. Cost 14,000. Site donated by Lord Sherborne. Ashlar on sandstone plinth with concealed roof. Commissioners' Gothic style. PLAN: 5 bays, chancel and west front, latter with central 3-stage tower and 2-stage side towers with thin pinnacles. EXTERIOR: off-set buttresses between bays and to towers. Y-tracery and transom to tall windows throughout. West end has chamfered first-stage band interrupted by central tall 3-light window in double-chamfered surround with pointed arched head; third stage has 2-light belfry windows. Entrances: central pointed entrance now concealed by glazed porch; further entrances to flanking walls have double studded doors and pointed heads. End towers have pointed-arched opening, now with war memorial to left and 2-light window to first stage; crowning parapet with pierced quatrefoil balustrade. Similar entrance to south side of flanking tower; 2-light window above; parapet with pierced quatrefoil balustrade. End bay breaks forward and is slightly taller, forming low 'towers' with off-set buttresses to angles and similar pierced parapet. Nave: end bays break forwards; 2-light windows, crowning band and low parapet. INTERIOR: elliptically-arched arcades with 2 orders of roll-moulding which continue to the piers support galleries to 3 sides, the fronts of which have carved traceried panelling and with ornate iron brackets to angles. Shallow sanctuary with narrow flanking transepts. Benches of 1877 mainly intact.

Staircase to west end has stick balusters. Complete set of floral stained glass windows c1877-8. Font of 1879 presented by Revd JH Shaw. Monuments mostly by Lewis of Clarence Street, Cheltenham to vacationing gentry and retired Indian civil servants and officers; the most ambitious being to Col Augustus Warburton of the King's Light Infantry (d.1836), erected by his fellow officers.



HISTORICAL NOTE: built as a Chapel of Ease for St Mary's Parish Church, Church Street (qv), this was the first subsequent Anglican church to be built in Cheltenham and was known as 'the New Church'. The first incumbent was Revd (later Dean) Francis Close, dubbed by Tennyson 'the Pope of Cheltenham'. Underwood had spent a period in the office of John Soane (1807-15), the church, as a consequence, shows some Soanian influence which distinguished it from many other more utilitarian designs of this type. Underwood was architect also of the Masonic Lodge, Portland Street (qv) (1818-23), Montpellier Spa (Lloyds Bank), Montpellier Walk (qv) and the demolished Sherborne Pump Room, Promenade (1818). Middleton was architect of several churches in Cheltenham. (Sampson A and Blake S: A Cheltenham Companion: Cheltenham: 1993-: 55; Blake S: Cheltenham's Churches and Chapels AD 773-1883: Cheltenham: 1979-: 14; The Buildings of England: Verey D: Gloucestershire: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: London: 1970-: 131; Little B: Cheltenham: London: 1952-: 55-56; Sladen T: Notes: 1995-).





Listing NGR: SO9518822772

Content

This is part of the Series: IOE01/1791 IOE Records taken by Helmut Schulenburg; within the Collection: IOE01 Images Of England

Rights

© Helmut Schulenburg. Source: Historic England Archive

This photograph was taken for the Images of England project