Details
HERTFORD
TL3213NW NEW ROAD, Bengeo
817-1/6/276 (South side)
Church of Holy Trinity, Bengeo
II
Parish church. 1855, architect Benjamin Ferrey, chancel
refurbished 1884, architect EB Ferrey.
MATERIALS: Kentish Ragstone, coursed squared rubble, with
ashlar dressings, yellow sandstone windows, buttresses with
flint panels, old tile roofs.
STYLE: Early English C13 Gothic Revival.
PLAN: west tower, spire, nave, aisles and chancel.
EXTERIOR: west tower with angle buttresses in 4 stages, twin
lancet openings to belfry at top of all 4 faces, with 2-light
louvres and circles above. Carved cornice band with
geometrical foliated ornament, broach spire with iron cross
finial. West door with moulded arch, dripmould and jambs; 3
light west window with geometrical tracery.
Nave and aisles roofed separately, 4 bays subdivided by
buttress, flint panels with stone quoins and offsets, 3-light
windows with geometrical tracery, and moulded dripmoulds;
north porch has arch and joints with undercut roll and
casement mouldings. Vestry at east end of south aisle.
Chancel 2 bays with 2-light windows; 5-light east window with
complex geometrical tracery with circles infilling lancets.
INTERIOR: plastered throughout: 4-bay nave arcade with
circular columns with bell capitals, chamfered arches. Arch
braced pitch pine roof, aisle roofs have coupled rafters with
scissor bracing. Gallery at west end of nave, supports
projecting on wood brackets, glazed screen to ringing chamber.
Chancel raised 2 steps, 2 bays, white painted and gilded
carved screen to vestry. Arch-braced purlin roof with 2 stages
of scalloped windbracing across common rafters.
FITTINGS: reredos c1884, heavily modelled central panel of
Christ and the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, within carved
stone frames with 4 granite colonnettes at centre and 3 bay
canopy with pierced tracery. Simple oak Gothic style choir
stalls with open fronts and moulded bench ends. Lectern,
carved eagle on turned baluster stand. Pulpit sandstone base,
pier and corbelling; oak top with panels with cinquefoil heads
below pierced square crosses. Font opposite north door, bowl
with foliated decorated style panels and long trefoils, on 8
clustered shafts. Screen, possibly moved from chancel, placed
in west bay of north aisle, simplified perpendicular style,
erected in memory of Robert Smith of Goldings (d 1894). Organ
J Walker and Sons 1877. War memorial in south aisle adjoining
vestry door, mosaic panel of St George in arched marble
surround.
STAINED GLASS: east window by Lavers and Barraud, c1894,
Christ in Majesty, with Faith, Hope and Charity, C16 style, in
memory of Mary and Charlotte Gosselin and Emma Trower,
daughters of Admiral Gosselin of Bengeo Hall.
HISTORICAL NOTE: Holy Trinity Church was built when Bengeo
developed as a residential suburb of Hertford, and superseded
St Leonard's as the Parish Church. The Architect Benjamin
Ferrey (1810-80) was a pupil of Augustus Charles Pugin
father of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin)and designed a
number of Gothic Revival churches.
(Pevsner N: Buildings of England: Hertfordshire:
Harmondsworth: 1977-: 93; Dixon and Muthesius: Victorian
Architecture: 1977-: 258).
Listing NGR: TL3248413600
This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Register. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 30 October 2017.
