Church Heritage Record 646270

A rectangle with galleries on three sides internally; south tower and later vestry at south-west.

The church was finished in 1798. The vestry was added in 1894 in sympathetic style, and the church was restored in 1871-91, reseated in 1900 and redecorated in 1920. Johnson was a Leeds architect who ddesigned a chapel in Leeds for the Roman Catholic congregation (1793, now demolished) a wing of Temple Newsam (1796, externally approximating to the Jacobean style of the Mansion), the north aisle of Cawthorne Church (1805), the Leeds Library (1808) and low-fronted wings and a portico for Sowerby Hall (1807).

Already by the later years of the eighteenth century Halifax was beginning to expand, and Holy Trinity seems to have been the first chapel of ease provided to alleviate the pressure on the mediaeval parish church (although that at Halifax is by no means small). It was founded by The Revd. Henry Coulthurst, Vicar of Halifax, in 1798, and is a particularly good example of its type, which may be paralleled, for example, at Wakefield and Blackburn. The exterior is finely detailed and, being longer from north to south than from east to west, with a tower at the south end, suggests that the interior is not correctly orientated. This, however, proves to be untrue, for the altar is indeed placed against the centre of the long east wall.

The two long sides are very different externally, one absolutely basic and with scarcely any detail and the other elaborated to provide the show front. It seems best to begin with the plain west front. This is divided vertically into three sections, the middle one of which projects slightly beyond the others and is surmounted by a pediment. In the centre a tall round-headed recess has a semi-circular window at the head, the rest being blind save for two later rectangular lights below the original window. Below a projecting course of masonry which divides the wall horizontally are three windows, the centre rectangular with a Gibbs surround of alternating moulued and blocked quoins. The outer lights again seem to be later additions. In the upper sections of the outer bays are of tall rectangular windows and, higher up, two small lights. A chimney has been contrived in one angle beside the central projection.

The bones of the east facade are the same, with a stone course dividing the walls horizontally, about one-third below and two-thirds above, and a projecting central bay under a pediment. The lower part, however, has fine doorcases, again with Gibbs surrounds, in the flanking bays. These are linked by short runs of balusters to the windows in the wall above, which are framed by unfluted pilasters with Ionic capitals supporting segmental pediments. The door cases have simple consoles set back, Mannerist style, at each side of the architrave and pronounced triple keystones. The upper areas of wall are framed by Ionic pilasters rising to the cornice which surrounds the whole building. The projecting central bay is strengthened by rustication of the blocks in the lower section, pierced by a big semi circular window which seems always to have been blind but is nevertheless glazed with iron tracery bars. The upper arch of wall has square blocks at each side and half-round Ionic shafts further in, the whole composition enclosing a Venetian window of slightly unusual form, consisting of a semi-circular light above the three main lights, again with a run of balusters below as in the flanking windows. The north wall is articulated by three tall round-headed recessed panels like that in the centre of the west wall, all with three semi-circular lights in the heads, and below the horizontal course are three square windows with Gibbs surrounds. Several downpipes, including one on this wall, have hoppers decorated with lion masks. The roof is very low-pitched and is not visible above the parapet except from the higher ground to the west.

Finally outside the church, the tower must be described. It is square, and as carefully handled as the show facade to the east front. The lowest stage has a round-headed doorway with original panelled door and fanlight above, and the vestry on the north side has rusticated quoins and a square window with Gibbs surround carefully copied from the other parts of the church. The second stage has a window within an aedicular frame, with Ionic pilasters each side, a triangular pediment above and consoles below. The east and west walls have plain semi-circular round-headed niches, and all three faces have small rectangular recesses above. This stage is divided from the next by a cornice with continues the line of that round the rest of the church without a break. The succeeding stage is, therefore, the first to rise above the parapet of the nave, and is quite plain on three sides to form a strong enough plinth for the belfry, so that the only decoration is a roundel with glazing bars arranged like a wheel in the north face. Above this stands the belfry, with canted corners which suggest an octagon. The bell-openings are round-headed, each framed by an aedicule with half-round Tuscan columns and a triangular pediment. Above these is a very shallow stage with lunettes in each face and roofed by a lead-covered cupola capped at the summit by a ball and cross which were once gilded. The south bell-opening has in addition a clock face in the top of the louvred aperture.

The interior of the church is very spacious, with plastered walls and galleries on the north, west and south sides. These are supported on iron Ionic pillars, somewhat attenuated in proportions, and all the galleries retain their box pows. The galleries are approached by wide stone staircases in the north-west and south-east angles, and the gallery fronts are panelled with long panels alternating with a group of three smaller panels of which the central one is oval. In the centre of the west gallery front the scheme is ve broken by a stretch of balusters which form a stylistic link with the same motif used on the east facade. Both the west and east walls have wide shallow recesses (about two feet deep) rising almost the height of the building, that in the west wall not very noticeable since the gallery obscures much of it. Both, however, have delicate plasterwork on the soffit of the segmental arch with lozenges and octagonal panels alternating with rectangular panels, all filled with stylized foliage motifs. The east recess forms a simple but very effective frame to the composition of the reredos and the east window. The reredos is composed of two free-standing Ionic columns carrying an entablature with plaster festoons of drapery in the frieze. The entablature breaks forward over each column, and the front panel here is decorated with a winged cherub's head, also executed in relief in plaster. The cornice is set at this plane (that is it does not recess between the columns but forms a shallow tester) and returns to continue along the wall at each side. The window stands directly above the reredos, with four pilasters forming the upright members and a fluted frieze above with a panel of an urn draped with scrolls set in the centre. The four rectangular gallery windows in the east and west walls are set within rectangular frames of plasterwork with unfluted pilasters capped by Corinthian capitals supporting a frieze and cornice like that of the east window. The general effect is highly decorative but restrained, rather in the style of James Wyatt.

The floors are paved with stone flags in the alleys and the pews stand on timber platforms, slightly sloping under the north and south galleries, and the chancel was refurnished in c.1880 in a style not entirely sympathetic to the building, with iron communion rails painted gold and a tall wooden pulpit on a massive red marble column on the north side. The organ in the south gallery, although a fine instrument, is also visually not in keeping with the building. The roof is arranged with twenty recessed panels, giving the effect of coffering in the centre, with a rosette in plaster at each intersection of the ribs. This rectangular area is, rather oddly, surrounded by a flat plaster ceiling. The decoration of the ceiling is in such a faded state that it is perfectly plain to see where the main timbers of the roof run from east to west across the church above the plaster. The cornice is simply a big hollow coving between mouldings.