Description

SX 0152 ST AUSTELL ST AUSTELL

868/1/456 Holy Trinity Church with
Chapel of St Michael
(Formerly listed as:
28.11.1950 ST AUSTELL
Holy Trinity Church)

GV I

Parish church. C13 and C14 remains at the E end, part of which is probably 1390, the date of an endowment for the chantry chapel of St Michael, otherwise C15, the tower 1478-87, the date of the coat of arms of Bishop Courtenay; much restored by G E Street, who designed the reredos and pulpit, in 1872. MATERIALS: granite ashlar plinth to S aisle, Pentewan stone ashlar above and to porch, which like the aisles and the tower has an embattled parapet; tower is Pentewan stone and Carn Grey granite, otherwise local rubble; slate roofs with coped gable ends. PLAN: C13 S aisle chapel; C14 chancel and N aisle chapel; C15 nave and N and S aisles, 2-storey S porch, W tower, and late C19 N vestries in transepts at the E end. EXTERIOR: earliest features are the C13 windows of the chapel east of the S aisle: 3 windows with paired trefoil-headed lancets plus quatrefoil tracery to the S wall and a 3-light window with trefoil tracery at the E end. Chancel window is probably C14 and has quatrefoil tracery. E window of N chapel is also probably C14 and has intersecting tracery. The finest work is to the 3-stage tower with buttresses offset from the corners, strings dividing the stages, the parapet string pierced by carved gargoyles; corbels carry the octagonal corners of the upper stage rising to crocketted pinnacles. There are niches with carved figures to each side of the 2nd stage, 4 apostles to each side except the W side which has a pyramid arrangement of 6 with the top 3 representing the Trinity and the Annunciation, and the risen Christ between 2 saints below; C 16 clock face (Pevsner) above the niches on the S side. Upper stage has blind 3-light windows and carved enrichment to some of the near ashlar courses; lower stage with 5-light window (all with tracery and hoodmoulds), a 2-centred arched doorway with square hoodmould and carved spandrels. N and S aisles have 4-light traceried windows; S aisle has an ashlar rood stair turret on the right with a slate sundial. Porch has offset corner buttresses and moulded strings, the centre of the parapet has carved detail; 2-light moulded 1st-floor window over a 2-centred (nearly round-arched) doorway with an inner open ogee arch. I NTERIOR: some plastered walls with exposed stone rear arches and arcade arches and the whole of the N aisle skinned; 2 (13 bays at the E end with Catecleuse stone arcades of pointed arches: round pier to S side and octagonal pier to N side, otherwise tall (15 arcades of Pentewan stone with nearly round arches and standard A (Pevsner) piers; (15 moulded waggon roofs with carved wallplates and carved and painted bosses and plastered panels to nave and aisles; arched-braced roofs to E end, painted except for N roof. FITTINGS: Norman elvan font of Bodmin type with faces at the corners and trees of life and dragon decoration; pillar piscina also Norman; a few (15 carved bench ends, the pews otherwise late (19 pitch-pine and panelled; some original (15 fragments of the rood screen; alabaster, marble and tile reredos and round alabaster pulpit with biblical scenes, both by Street; late (19 or early (20 parclose screens. MONUMENTS: free-standing black urn on a square base to Joseph Sawle who died 1769, by Isbell; marble wall obelisk to John Graves Esq. Rear Admiral R N. GLASS: late (19 or early (20 memorial glass to N aisle. This church has the unusual survival of a significant proportion ofC13 and (14 fabric, also the tower is one of the finest in Cornwall.
(The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Cornwall: London: 1990-: 156; Cartwright A: Building Stones of St Austell).

Listing NGR: SX0141752452

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Holy Trinity Church, St Austell at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17529418

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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