Church of the Holy Trinity (Church of England)

Details

WESTON CHURCH LANE
TL 22 NE (West side)
Church End

5/84 Church of The Holy Trinity
27.5.68 (C of E)

GV I

Parish church. C12 as a cruciform church with crossing tower, apsidal
transept chapels and presumably an apsidal chancel; C15 S aisle, S
porch, clearstory, new windows, and S transept rebuilt as part of S
aisle; chancel rebuilt 1840 by Thomas Smith for Rev. Benjamin Donne.
Restoration 1867 with new upper part of tower omitting former tall lead
covered spire; vestry added 1880. Flint rubble, the nave, S aisle and
porch roughcast with limestone and clunch dressings, tower faced in
uncoursed flint pebbles, N transept of coursed tuffa and field flints
with squared limestone quoins and window dressings, red brick chancel
formerly all stuccoed now only with stucco dressings, ornamental red
brick vestry. Slated roofs. Consists of a square ended Neo-Norman
chancel, tall crenelated crossing tower, north transept, tall nave, S
aisle, S porch, and NE vestry. The chancel on the same floor level as
the crossing has a steep pitched 3-bays, arched-braced, hammer-beam open
timber roof on the pattern of the Inns of Court with early Renaissance
style carved pendants and stone corbels. Elaborate patterned tile floor
with encaustic tile roundels. 2 round-headed windows to each side with
mid C19 stained glass, stone bullseye window over round-headed S door in
middle bay. Round-headed chamfered N door to vestry opposite with wall
monument above to John Fairclough, d.1630, with Latin inscription, in
form of a marble aedicule with panelled pilasters and broken pediment
with stepped armorial cartouches. Stone E window of 3 lancets with
stained glass by Messrs Powell. The central tower (13½ft square) is
narrower than the chancel or nave and is carried on 4 unmoulded Norman
crossing arches on axe-dressed ashlar piers with chamfered plinths and
deep impost bands of unusual form, deeply moulded and divided into upper
and lower parts: the abaci of the 2 eastern piers decorated: the NE pier
with billet bands: the SE with plain scallops to chancel arch but with
alternate plain and beaded crescents to former S transeptal arch. The
upper part of the tower is rebuilt with a slit window on each face to
middle stage, external offset to narrower top stage with large 2-lights
blunt-pointed belfry opening with central mullion and cusped tracery in
the head in each face. Corbelled battlemented parapet. External door to
spiral stair in NE angle carried higher in a crenelated octagonal turret
with vane on top. Clock face set in W belfry opening. Tall narrow
steep-roofed Norman N transept with thick walls, round headed C12 small
window with deep internal splays central in N and W walls and wide
round-arched recess in E wall formerly the arch into an apse. 2
tie-beams carry convex-curved queen-posts supporting boarded ceiling of
half octagonal rafter roof. Lofty wide nave with low-pitched roof. C15
grotesque stone corbels support wallposts, braces and tie-beams of 3
bays roof. Sub-principals, principals, and moulded longitudinal members
intersect in large carved painted floral bosses. Floor of chequered
black and red tiles. Windows set unusually high. 2 Perp windows in N
wall, 3-lights near E end, 2-lights over blocked N door. Pointed
segmental heads with tracery. Small Neo-Norman wall monument between to
Hannah Pryor, d.1850 in form of an aedicule. 3 square-headed clearstory
openings over S arcade now open into S aisle. 3 bays arcade with
2-centred arches of 2 hollow chamfered orders with hollows between.
Octagonal piers with moulded caps and bases. Octagonal oak pulpit with
open arcading on an octagonal moulded base moved here in 1840 from the
Church of St. Mary the Less, Cambridge, where it is said to have been
used by Jeremy Taylor. On RH of E crossing arch a large copper repousee
war memorial tablet. N doorway visible externally between buttresses.
C15 2-centred arched head with drip and 2 hollow chamfered orders.
Boarding infill. Stone plinth to nave and diagonal buttress at W.
3-lights similar C15 W window. Perp S aisle has 6-bays C19 timber roof
on tortured grotesque carved stone corbels. C15 E window of 3-lights
with tracery, and 3 2-lights windows in S wall, similar to nave windows
with cinquefoil lights, segmental pointed heads, and tracery with
central mullion, C15 piscina near E end with wide hollow chamfered,
2-centred head and projecting canted moulded base with cinquefoil drain.
The E part of the aisle wider where it incorporates former S transept.
Font at W end of aisle C15, with octagonal bowl, each face a square sunk
panel with quatrefoil and central fleuron. Multiple mouldings to corbel
stage over octagonal trefoil-panelled octagonal shaft and to wide
octagonal base. The C15 S doorway has a 2-centred arch with drip and
moulded chamfer, ogee-roll-ogee. Wide, tall porch with stone benches
each side. Pointed segmental rear-arches to 2-lights cinquefoil window
on each side, with sunk spandrels. Flat ceiling with heavy moulded ribs
forming 4 panels with heavy painted bosses at corners and intersections.
Outer arch of 2 orders similar to S door but half-octagonal jamb shafts
and moulded caps to inner order. Doors inserted in arch in C20. Gabled
small N vestry has gauged and moulded red brickwork designed to be left
exposed. Set back corner buttresses unlike the earlier chancel
originally stuccoed. (RCHM (1911)237: VCH (1912)175-6: Kelly (1914)290:
Pevsner (1977)402: Jean Le Roux Weston Parish Church: men and mortar
n.d. [c.1978] guide available at church).


Listing NGR: TL2658829952


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, 12 January 2017.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

162696

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Doubleday, A, The Victoria History of the County of Hertford, (1912), 175-6
Le Roux, J, Weston Parish Church Men and Mortar, (1978)
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Hertfordshire, (1977)
Kellys Directory in Hertfordshire, (1914), 290

Websites
War Memorials Register, accessed 12 January 2017 from http://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/3837

Other
Inventory of the Historical Monuments of Hertfordshire, (1910)

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