Description

SO 8600-8700 MINCHINHAMPTON BELL LANE, Minchinhampton Town (north side)

19/180 Church of the Holy Trinity

28.6.60

GV I

Parish church. C14 tower and transepts. Remainder of church rebuilt 1842 by Thomas Foster of Bristol; chancel altered 1869-71 by William Burges. Porch room by Peter Falconer added in 1973. Ashlar and random rubble limestone; stone and Welsh slate roofs. Nave with aisles, north and south transepts, central tower and chancel. West entrance lobby addition and parish room. C14 tower and transepts, tower having tall deeply splayed 2-light pointed belfry openings with Decorated tracery; broach spire with narrow lucarnes to cardinal faces; upper part removed 1563 and replaced by crenellated coronet with crocketed pinnacles. Octagonal north east stair turret entered by pointed arched doorway in angle between chancel and north transept. Very fine south transept has large 5-light rose window, diagonal corner buttresses and row of closely-spaced side wall buttresses with 2-light pointed windows between. Plainer north transept with 3-light north and similar east window with reticulated tracery, north having circular Cl9 restored window above with quatrefoil tracery. Moulded pointed arched doorway on east side with hoodmould. C19 buttressed chancel has large 5-light geometrical traceried east window with double tracery in Burges's typical bold style; empty hooded image niche above. Perpendicular Gothic nave by Foster appears bulky against medieval crossing. Five Perpendicular aisle windows and one bay at west end with smaller window; 2-light clerestory windows with 4-centred pointed heads separated by gabled buttresses. Crenellated parapets with tall crocketed pinnacles at west end above angle buttresses. Four-light Perpendicular west window. Flat-roofed lobby obscures west doorway, links with hexagonal church room having sprocketed pyramidal roof with ball finial and stone cross windows. Interior: broad nave with panelled roof having gilt bosses and painted decoration to ribbing. Four-bay arcades with octagonal columns. C14 crossing arches die into responds of piers. Tierceron vaulting beneath tower taken off slender corner shafts with foliage capitals. Some medieval painting survives on nave arch. Timber boarded barrel vault to chancel with 1931 painted decoration by F.C. Eden. Highly polished encaustic tile to stepped chancel floor. Most remarkable part of interior is south transept, dominated by rose window and with pitched stone slab roof supported on stone cross-arches with scissor bracing, these set closely together relating to the external buttressing. Two ogee-arched Decorated mortuary tomb recesses below south transept window have rich crocket decoration and pinnacles, also retaining effigy of Knight in contemporary armour and his Lady, each on chest with quatrefoil front panelling. Similar tomb recess in north transept now obscured by organ. Many other fine memorials including brasses at west end of nave. Good segmental pedimented memorial in south transept to IEREMIE BVCKE, a Parliamentary officer, appears undated; oval brass plate below to Jacobus Bradley, S.T.P., died 1762 aged 70 has latin inscription - this formerly being attached to Bradley's monument in the churchyard (q.v.). Several good monuments reset high in nave between clerestory windows. All are fine, many of cadaver type, mostly to Sheppard family of Gatcombe Park. Especially good is one on south side by Ricketts of Gloucester to SAMUEL SHEPPARD, died 1770. Boldest on north side is pedimented plaque to JOSEPH ILES, died 1749, by Robert Chambers. Remainder of fittings mostly date from re-seating of church in 1875. Timber rood screen by F.C. Eden of 1920 was intended to be painted. Very complete stained glass: east window and south rose window by Hardman. West window and most aisles windows are by Herbert Bryans, a pupil of Kempe, installed 1899-1922. One window in north aisle by Edward Payne. Church at Minchinhampton originally given by William the Conqueror to the Abbaye aux Dames, Caen, passing to the nuns of Syon Abbey in 1415. A major rebuilding occurred in C12 but no trace of this survives. (J. Mordant Crook, William Burges and the High Victorian Dream, 1981; N.M. Herbert, 'Minchinhampton' in V.C.H. Glos. xi 1976, pp 184-207; A.T. Playne, Minchinhampton and Avening, 1915; and D. Verey, Cotswold Churches, 1976 and Gloucestershire: The Cotswolds, 1979)

Listing NGR: SO8721800815

External Links

• Wikidata Q17526223

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Recommended Books

• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets