Description

786/54/421 SOUTHEND CRESCENT SE9
08-JUN-73 (East side)
CHURCH OF HOLY TRINITY

II

East parts (chancel, transepts and E bays of nave) of 1868-9 by G E Street. 1872 organ chamber. 1908 N vestry. W part of nave and aisles, W baptistry and adjacent porches of 1909 by Sir Arthur Blomfield and Son. Theirs is also said to be the chancel E window and S chapel. An attached parish room was added N of the church in the late C20. Reordered 1989 when the altar was sited in the crossing.

MATERIALS: Rubble, stone masonry with freestone dressings. Clay tiled roofs.

PLAN: Chancel, chancel S aisle, N organ chamber, N vestry, N and S transepts, nave, N and S aisles, N porch, rounded apsidal baptistry with porches to the N and S of it, community room to N of nave.

EXTERIOR: The E end of the church presents the E ends of the chancel and S chapel both of which have five-light windows with rich Decorated tracery. N of the chancel is a plain vestry with a plain parapet. The S side of the chapel has a pair of three-light square-headed windows separated by a two-light, quatrefoil-headed window under a gable breaking through the eaves line. W of the chapel is the S transept with a large four-light Perpendicular window. The S aisle has three sets of three-light cusped windows and, in the W bay, a two-light window and gable of the same design as that in the chapel. The W end, which forms the elevation facing the road, has a five-light W window of great elaboration to the nave, the rounded apse of the baptistry and its pair of flanking porches: the porches and baptistry have single-light cusped windows. On the N there is a porch and the modern block of the parish room but the articulation of the N aisle generally mirrors that of the S. There is no clerestory.

INTERIOR: The body of the church is of five bays plus a further bay for the transepts. The arcade on the N has round piers with moulded capitals and bases and double chamfered arches. The S arcade takes the same form except that the two E bays of the nave have octagonal piers. There is a two-bay arcade from the chancel to the S chapel and a further arch from the S transept to the chapel. The roof to the nave has tie-beams and crown posts, and that to the chancel is of arch-braced construction. The transept roofs are divided into square panels by moulded ribs. Over the aisles there are lean-to roofs. Most of the roofs have received decoration, that in the N transept having blue grounds to the panels and decoration with gold sunbursts; similar decoration appears on the S transept roof with M emblems. The chancel and chapel roofs have patterned decoration. Much of the decoration is the work of Kempe and Co who were employed at the 1909 remodelling of the church and after the First World War. The work included diapering on the side walls of the chancel but this has been painted out.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The church has had an extensive series of embellishments in addition to the decoration mentioned above. There is a good marble pavement in the chancel. The reredos is to the designs of W D Caröe. Kempe and Co were responsible for the traceried stalls in the chancel, the late medieval-style carved wooden screens and the reredos in the S chapel which includes figure of St Alban, St George and St Joan in niches similar to those in the chapel at Pembroke College, Oxford, another Kempe work. The Kempe firm, famous for its stained glass, was responsible for the 1909 windows in the S wall of the chapel and around the baptistry. Excellent modern altar, lectern and seat in the reordered area in the crossing. The font is a conventional octagonal one now resited in the S transept. Modern chairs form the seating in the nave and aisles.

HISTORY: The church was built in two main phases, the first by the great Gothic Revival architect George Edmund Street (1824-81), the second at the start of the C20 by Sir Arthur Blomfield and Sons. The Street phase was consecrated on 30 August 1869 and had been built at a cost of £4,708. The S chapel was created as the St Agnes Chapel but after the First World War, the then rector, the Rev. Henry Hall, who had been chaplain to the 29th British Infantry Division at Gallipoli, converted it into the Gallipoli chapel and brought in Kempe and Co to carry out the decorative work required.

SOURCES:
Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England: London 2: South, 1983, pp 279-80
Notes for English Heritage Historians, Report by Neil Burton, 4 August 1987.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
The church of the Holy Trinity, Eltham, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is a good Gothic Revival church by two well-known C19 and early C20 practices.
* It includes a number of high-quality fixtures and decorative schemes.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Church of Holy Trinity at Wikipedia
• Church of Holy Trinity official website
• Wikidata Q27080478

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

• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)