Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 18 October 2023 to update the name and address, amend description due to change in building use and to reformat the text to current standards

TQ2805SE
579-1/14/9

HOVE
1 Goldstone Villas
Trinity Medical Centre
Former Holy Trinity Church

(Formerly listed as Holy Trinity Church, BLATCHINGTON ROAD)

GV
II
Former church. 1863-4, tower built 1866, north aisle 1868, external pulpit added 1912, two robing rooms for the choir inserted under the gallery in 1949, one of which became the vicar's office in 1975. The church became redundant in 2007 and opened as a medical centre in 2017

Designed by a local architect, James Woodman, (builder Mr Cane), in a style described variously as Lombardo-Gothic, Early English, or "one where the details are ignorant beyond belief"; possibly the ecclesiastical-eclectic style. Red brick with coloured brick in arches to window openings, Bath stone dressings including string courses and cornices, asbestos slate roofs, coped verges.

Plan: four bay aisled nave, nave extended west with large gallery over vestry rooms, polygonal apse, north-east organ bay and south-east vestry with attached external pulpit; entrance via the base of the tower on south front. Crenellated three stage tower, two-light bell-openings, arcade of interlocking arches on south front below clock, pointed arch openings at ground floor level now closed by glass doors, two stage stair turret on west front. The aisles are lit from the east end by rose windows, as is the west end of the nave. The flat-roofed external pulpit is built of red brick with Bath stone dressings and has Ionic pilasters supporting a cavetto moulded cornice. It is approached by a short flight of steps with an ashlar wall; studded plank door to pulpit.

Interior rendered. Arch-braced roof to chancel carried on foliate corbels; scissor-brace to nave; unusual roof construction to aisles of two tiers of curved struts. Foliate capitals to arcade. Wooden gallery with pierced panels. Organ with stencilled pipes, 1883 by Harper of Bath; rebuilt 1926 and converted to electricity 1964. The font of Caen stone supported by columns of Sicilian marble was presented in 1878, the carved canopy in 1924. Sanctuary panelling, choir stalls and altar table date from 1924. Carpetted chancel. The pulpit, according to the church guidebook, originally "projected over the north edge of the chancel opening" but was replaced in 1934 by a freestanding wooden one. Stained glass by Ward and Hughes, with one window in the north aisle by Hardman. The intended spire was never built.

This is the only church in the Brighton and Hove area with an external pulpit, indicative of the evangelical traditions of its early days. This also explains the dearth of contemporary fittings. An interesting church of its type, occupying a prominent position in an important street.

Listing NGR: TQ2883605121

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Holy Trinity Church, Hove at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q15224715

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)