Summary
The Church of the Holy Trinity was built in 1826 as a proprietary chapel to the designs by the local architect, Edward Garbett.
Reasons for Designation
The Church of the Holy Trinity, Oxford Road, Reading is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as an early-C19 building which contributes to the character of an architecturally varied historic streetscape.
Historic interest:
* as part of the historic urban development of Reading.
Group value:
* the building is in close proximity to a large number of listed buildings and forms part of a strong historic grouping.
History
Until the C19, most of the land west of Reading town centre was open farmland crossed by two ancient routes passing from London to the West Country. Today, the northern of these is named Oxford Road, while the southern is Castle Street, Castle Hill and Bath Road. Inns and isolated dwellings likely existed on these roads before the C18. Fortifications were built throughout the area by Royalist forces garrisoned in the town during the Civil War with some of the earthworks surviving into the early C19.
From the early C18, development slowly began to spread westward along Castle Hill/Bath Road and Oxford Road. John Rocque’s Map of Berkshire (1761) depicts ribbon development along Castle Hill/Bath Road extending as far as the junction with Tilehurst Road, and individual houses along Oxford Road roughly as far as the present-day Russell Street. More comprehensive development of the area began in the early C19 and progressed gradually over the 100 years. Development spread further along Castle Street/Castle Hill, with some of the earlier buildings depicted on Rocque’s map seemingly replaced. North-south link roads were also laid out across the market gardens that previously existed between Oxford Road and Bath Road. Terraced housing was erected in considerable quantities during the first half of the century to cater for a variety of social groups.
The Church of the Holy Trinity (also known as Holy Trinity Church) was built in 1826 as a proprietary chapel to the designs by the local architect, Edward Garbett. At the time it stood in a fairly isolated location, on a largely undeveloped section of Oxford Road. The architect William Webb carried out extensive modifications in 1845 and is responsible for the steeply-pitched roof, simple Gothic Revival southern elevation and possibly the one to two-storey vestry projecting from the north elevation. The works were carried out by the local architect-builder, John Billing. A photograph was taken of the chapel by the Reading-based pioneer of photography, Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), shortly after the completion of the remodelling works. It is possibly the first English church to have been photographed. In 1864 the building became a chapel of ease within the ancient parish of St Mary the Virgin, and in 1870 it became a parish church in its own right.
Sometime during the late C19, a two-storey extension bearing a tall traceried window was added to the north elevation of the church adjoining the vestry and the west elevation. A further extension was added during the C20 in the form of a simple single-storey element on the northeast corner of the building. In around 2009, the spirelet to the belfry at the apex of the southern elevation’s gable was removed.
The church contains a chancel screen designed by AWN Pugin (1812-1852), the pioneer of Gothic Revival architecture and design. This was originally installed at St Chad’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Birmingham, but later moved to Holy Trinity Church by a former vicar, Canon Brian Brindley, who also incorporated fittings from All Saints, Oxford, and elsewhere.
Details
A church of 1826 by Edward Garbett with additions and alterations by John Billing of 1845-1846 and further additions in the C20 and C21.
MATERIALS: the principal south elevation is of fine-tooled Bath Stone, while the east, west and north elevations are of red brick with stone dressings. The roof covering is slate. The front boundary wall has stone piers and modern concrete and iron/steel railings and gates.
PLAN: a north-south plan comprising a five-bay nave, chancel apse, side chapels and vestry with ritual East at the compass north end.
EXTERIOR: building with rendering of the Gothic Revival style under a steeply-pitched roof, with later additions on the north and east elevations breaking the symmetry of the plan. The principal elevation faces Oxford Road and comprises a symmetrically designed gable-end wall in fine-tooled stone. There are three arched doorways with splayed jambs, the central one being larger, each containing detached columns with simple moulded capitals, from which spring the mouldings forming the two-centred arch over each door. The three arches shared a hood mould, which runs across the entire length of the elevation. Each archway contains a finely-carved door under timber tracery windows. Above the doorways are three lancet windows, the central being taller, with a shared hood mould. At the apex of the roof pitch is a belfry corbelled out from the elevation containing a single bell. It has lost its spirelet. On either side of the elevation are embellished corner buttresses.
The east and west elevations each contain six lancet windows with leaded lights, with simple brick buttresses between each pair of windows. The rear (north) elevation is almost completely screened from the street. It comprises a simple brick gable end wall with a two-tier vestry under a pitched roof placed centrally on the elevation, with a rose window on the taller part. Adjoining the vestry to the west is a later extension under a monopitched roof containing a traceried, arched window on its west elevation. There is a plain single-storey extension at the north-east corner of the building.
Along the southern boundary of the churchyard with Oxford Road is a concrete boundary wall incorporating original finely-carved stone piers.
INTERIOR: designed in a Gothic Revival style consisting of a five-bay nave with the galleries removed, a chancel apse and side chapels. There is a fine chancel screen by AWN Pugin, originally located at St Chad’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Birmingham, adapted and incorporated by R Gradidge in 1968-1969. Other fittings include a fine angular pulpit of 1706-1708 with fluted egg-cup base and a shaped and marbled organ of around 1780, both brought from the Church of All Saints, Oxford, and an upholstered Gothick chair of around 1826.
