Church Heritage Record 601242

Nave and apsidal chancel in one, north aisle with east chapel and  organ chamber, gabled east vestry building at angle across east end of chancel. Boiler room under nave.

Nave c 19m (66 ft) x 8m (25 ft), chancel 8m (25ft) x 7m (21’6ft).

Archaeology

There are obviously highly significant Prehistoric and Roman settlement remains in the area, as the church sits on the line of the Medieval city walls and within the World Heritage site of Bath / Aquae Sulis.

History

The church was built within the then parish of St James to replace St Mary’s chapel (hence Chapel Row), which had stood a short distance to the north-east in the south-west corner of Queen Square. This chapel had been built in 1734, but was demolished in the early 1870s by the Midland Railway Co to widen the road. This was Bath’s first proprietary chapel, possibly the first of its kind outside London, designed by John Wood the Elder in Greek Classical style with a lavish stuccoed ceiling by the Franchini brothers. It was compared to Inigo Jones’ St Paul’s Chapel in Covent Garden, although smaller. It had an impressive bell turret and portico. The monuments were perhaps taken on from this chapel.  

The history of the new church is complex.  The new church was originally dedicated to St Paul, and was built in 1872-4 by Wilson, Wilcox and Wilson of Bath, the same architects added the north aisle in 1880-1. It would appear from the ICBS notes that they rejected an earlier design for a new church by Manners and Gill.  Wilson & Wilcox designed or worked on several churches, their magnum opus is St Stephen’s also in Walcot, Bath.

The bellcote was hit by lightning in June 1948, bringing part of it down onto the nave roof. Documents relating to the repair of this, and to the conversion described below, are preserved in the Council’s survey file on the church (Walcot St Paul). The majority of the north aisle was converted by Hugh Roberts in 1954 into a church hall spread over two floors, creating some useful rooms.

The church was rededicated as Holy Trinity in 1957 following the demolition of the nearby church of that dedication in Walcot, which had been badly damaged during a Baedeker raid in 1942. The original dedication to St Paul is preserved in the name of the parish.

The hall and the church itself were used for complementary purposes such as concerts, dance classes and charity purposes until 2011 when the church was closed, the reason given being the cost (£40,000) of repairing the electrical system. The church was spot-listed in December 2011.

There is some very good detail enlivening the 13th-century French Gothic idiom, with plate tracery and much use of elaborate gablets, including to the prominent buttresses to the nave.  Stone copings and final crosses.  The nave west façade is particularly richly detailed, with an arcade of four arches with two doors and two 3-light windows. Above the arcade is a gallery with balustrade of small lancets under hooded gablets, and above this again an arcade of five lancets with double colonettes below a large rose window in the gable.

The original design of this potentially fine small church was changed by the addition of a gabled north aisle, rather unbalancing the west façade. In particular there is an oversized gabled bellcote rising from the intersection of nave and aisle, with a protruding round stair turret with cupola. A large pointed doorway is set within a otherwise blank wall (by Roberts?) forming a narthex with a plain parapet, behind which rises the aisle gable, pierced by a pointed 4-light window.

The nave south wall is pierced by four 2-light plate tracery windows between gabletted buttresses and under a corbel table with billet, the apsidal chancel has seven lancets with tracery in the head, widely spaced. The north aisle wall has tall 2-lights with plate tracery and a transom. A large stone fleche once marked the intersection of nave and chancel, with an odd pagoda-like profile, which has been removed (following the lightning strike?).

Another idiosyncratic feature is the gabled vestry set at an angle across the east end of the chancel, making best use of the tight plot. It is joined to the south wall of the chancel by a canted lean-to porch with a pointed doorway and dogtooth to three small 2-light pointed windows. The gabled vestry itself has a large 3-light pointed window to the street.

Moving inside the church through the northern door at the west end, one enters a passageway within the north aisle conversion, with rooms to the left, ahead, and a large hall above with stage. There are toilets and small kitchens, all rather dated but functional, or would be if the electrics worked.

A door on your right leads into the church, the walls are plastered and whitewashed.  The broad open space of the nave and chancel under one roof was advanced for the time, and is undeniably impressive, as well as potentially useful. Good king-post roof, pendant Rood.  Encaustic tile floor to the chancel up three marble steps, blue carpets elsewhere. Wooden panelling around the apse.  There is no fixed seating, rather a number of different types of chair. 

The north arcade of the now narrow aisle has pointed arches with continuous hoodmould supported by tall slender piers with intricate foliage detailing to the capitals and bases. The 1950s conversion juts into this within a plain wall with skylights in the ceiling.  At the east end is what used to be a chapel, with the organ chamber within a wooden traceried screen set within the east side. The console sits within the easternmost arch of the arcade.

The vestry is rather damp, though apparently structurally sound.