CHAPTER I

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH

Although the first mention of this church which the indefatigable Dugdale could find was its appropriation to the priory in 1259-1260, it is tolerably certain that its foundation was much earlier. As before said, it is reputed to be older than St. Michael’s and its position close to the monastery suggests that it had been built, as often happened, for the parishioners by the monks who disliked their intrusion within the priory church. The appropriation at this time may have been rather of the nature of a confirmation of the rights of the priory than the institution of a new condition of things. As, in 1391, the chancel had to be rebuilt being ruinated and decayed we may conclude that it was probably older than the present north porch which is certainly not later than 1259. It was at the same time lengthened by twenty-four feet, the convent giving one hundred shillings per annum for eight years and six trees, the parishioners finding all other material and workmanship. The convent and parish also agreed to support and keep it in repair at their joint charges.

From 1298, when Henry de Harenhale was appointed, the list of vicars is complete, but in a cartulary of the priory mention is made of Ralph de Sowe, vicar of Trinity, as giving a tenement in Well Street, for the celebration of his anniversary.

There are but few landmarks in its history, and dates affecting the structure can generally be assigned by internal evidence alone. The nave arcades had already been rebuilt before the chancel was touched, and a piece of work of the same period is to be seen in the five-light Decorated window, in the Consistory Court which now opens into the large chamber over the porch. We have no record of the building of the clearstory and roof of the nave. The resemblances between this clearstory, and that of St. John’s chancel, raise the question of priority. The fuller development at St. John’s of the peculiar treatment of the angles points to its being a little later but probably both fall within the second and third quarters of the fifteenth century.

For a church of this size the chapels, altars and chantries were very numerous, there being probably fifteen altars in all. In 1522 the establishment of clergy consisted of a vicar, eleven parochial priests and two chantry priests. Dugdale enumerates six chantries so that it is evident that here as often elsewhere some of the parochial priests derived the whole or a part of their support from their performance of the duties of chantry priests.

Many chantry priests on the other hand had other duties and took part in other services than the daily mass for which the chantry was founded

So much that is of interest in the religious life of the period is connected with the chantries that it is worth while recording some of the scattered notices that have come down to us.

To begin with the Chapel of Our Lady, the earliest mention we have of it is in 1364 while in 1392 the Corpus Christi Gild endowed a priest there to sing mass for the good estate of Richard II, Anne his queen, and the whole realm of England, to be called St. Mary’s priest. The indenture sets forth that “he is to be at Divine service on Sundays and double Feasts in the chancel and at Matins, Hours, Masses, Evensong, Compline and other offices used in the said church and also daily at Salve in our Lady’s Chapel unless hindered by reasonable cause.” The records of the Dissolution of the Chantries show how much town property must have been held by them, while from these and other sources we learn the extent of their belongings in tenements, messuages, rent charges and the like. Thus in 1454 Emot Dowte gave several tenements to this altar and in 1492 Richard Clyff “late parson of St. George in London,” left a house in Well St. to the church “to the intent that the mass of Our Lady may be observed the better.” In 1558 (the year of Elizabeth’s accession) William Hyndeman, alderman and butcher, directs that his body be buried in the Lady Chapel “as aldermen are wont to be buried, towards the charges whereof I give twenty nobles to be levied of my quick cattle and if it be too little then I will that Sybil my wife shall lay down 20s. more. He also orders an obit to be kept after the death of his wife yearly for ever; a form of words that must surely have sounded unreal after the changes of the last two reigns.

Perceye’s chantry again, which Dugdale considered the oldest (though he does not give the date) was endowed in 1350 with six messuages, one shop, six acres of land and 40s. rent, all lying in Coventry, to which in 1407 William Botoner and others, added a messuage and twenty-four acres of land in the city for another priest.

Then the chantry of the Holy Cross (1357) founded for two priests to sing daily a mass for the good estate before death and for the souls after of the royal family, and for the founders and the members of the Fraternity of the Holy Cross, was endowed with seven messuages, fourteen shops and sixteen acres of land in the city.

Dugdale enumerates also four others, Cellet’s, Corpus Christi, Lodynton’s and Allesley’s, to which should probably be added Marler’s, assigned by him to St. Michael’s. The first two are doubtless the same foundation, for in 1329 land and tenements were granted to the priest of Corpus Christi Chapel for the health of the soul of William Celet and others.

It was almost certainly situated in the south transept, on the upper level over the vaulted passage. The position of Lodynton’s chantry (1393) is not known; Allesley’s, founded in the reign of Edward I, was sung at St. Thomas’s altar.

Richard Marler stipulates in his will that his priest is to have the “stypend or wagis of nyne marks by yere so long as he shall be of good and prestly conversacyon and demeanor, wt’ a p’vyso that yf the seyde prest be ffounde otherwyse, after monyc’on and reasonable warnyng to hym geven, he to be removed

Much of the later history of the church relates to the destruction of its fittings and furniture or to restorations almost as grievous. In 1560 2d was paid for taking down the carving about the high altar, while the Mayor bought the panelling of the altar for 33d, the vail for 5s., the “thing that the sacrament was in over the altar 1s.,” the “peyre [pair of candlesticks?] that was upon the altar 5d” Perhaps he thought that all these things would be wanted again ere long. In 1547 a quantity of costly vestments and banners had been sold and we find in the accounts a number of such items as these: “Sold the 6 day of Jennery 5 copps of red teyssew to Mr. Roghers, now mayre (and 4 other persons) pryce of the sayd copps, 10l. To Bawden Desseld one cope of red velvet, 5l. Mr. Schewyll a grène velvet cope, 30s.”

But before Mary’s death we have a lengthy inventory of copes, vestments, albs, banners and the like, some of which may have come back to the church from the buyers at the sale eleven years before.

The church must have looked like a builder’s yard in 1643 when the Committee and Council of War pulled down divers houses outside Bishop’s and Spon Gates and stacked the materials here, while the changes of government are indicated by the payment in 1647 of 3d “to Hopes for defacing the King’s Arms” and in 1660 of 6s. to “Hope for the King’s Arms.

Five years after this the spire, which had caused much anxiety and expense for many years, was blown down in a gale, falling across the chancel and causing much destruction. All was restored and the spire rebuilt in three years. Reference has been made to the existence of a vaulted passage through the south transept. This was made necessary by the position of an ancient building known as Jesus Hall which adjoined the transept and thus blocked the way from the Butchery in this direction. The Hall had probably been long used as the residence of the priests attached to the church but nothing is known of its origin. It was destroyed in 1742. Only in 1834, when the exterior of the church was recased was the passage blocked and the floor of the upper chapel removed

The Register records the marriage of Sarah Kemble with William Siddons on 25th November, 1773.

CHAPTER II

THE EXTERIOR OF THE CHURCH

The church of Holy Trinity loses much, in popular estimation at least, by its nearness to St. Michael’s. It invites comparison of the most obvious sort. It is not nearly so large and its spire is not so high, these facts alone are sufficient to account for the popular view. Fuller, in his “Worthies” says of the two churches, “How clearly would they have shined if set at competent distance! Whereas now, such their Vicinity, that the Archangel eclipseth the Trinity.”

The plan is quite unlike that of its neighbour, being cruciform, with a central tower, a short nave, and a chancel distinctly longer than the nave. On the south both nave and chancel have a single aisle, the transept projecting beyond it and there is a vestry at the east end On the north there is a similar aisle with a Lady Chapel at the east corresponding to the Vestry, but a large porch and several chapels fill up the spaces so that the transept does not in plan project.

Looking at the exterior as a whole it may be said that the more moderate length (194 feet), the central spire, 230 feet high, and the transepts unite in forming a more satisfactory composition than the long body and immense western steeple of St. Michael’s. There however, the superiority ceases for the frequent “recasings” and restorations have left hardly a stone of the exterior that has not been renewed again and again, and the dates of these operations, 1786, 1826, 1843, sufficiently suggest the degree of knowledge and feeling likely to be manifested in the work.

Probably most of the structure was first built of the same friable red sandstone as its greater neighbour. Much of the recasing has been executed in a rather harder gray sandstone, but the tower and spire are still red

The tower above the roofs, is of two stages, the upper, or bell chamber, and the lower or lantern opening into the church. Below this are small windows with the lines of the old high-pitched roof visible above the present transept roofs, but in the nave and chancel the lines of the old roofs are now within the church, the clearstory having since been added Each face of the tower is divided, apart from the narrow angle buttresses, into six vertical divisions separated by thin projections of buttress form. On the south and west the stair turret absorbs one of the outer divisions. Each division is curved in plan in a curious way, which may be the perpetuation of a feature of the original design, but was more probably introduced or modified by the person who recased the tower in 1826. That there was sculpture we know, for in 1709 ten shillings was paid for taking the images down from the steeple. The smallness of the sum indicates that they were few in number, and if they occupied similar positions to those on the belfry stage of St. Michael’s, and the structure was as decayed as was the tower of that church it is probable that the cutting away of the niches may have suggested the curving of the surfaces especially as the tower would be thereby lightened As it is we cannot be certain of much else than that there were vertical divisions serving to emphasize the impression of height and that the openings were in the same positions as now.

The spire blown down in 1665 had been in the previous ninety years five times repaired and repointed We cannot now say whether the original design was at all closely followed in the rebuilding, but its present likeness to St. Michael’s suggests doubts. The lowest stage which takes the place of the octagon and may be an intentional imitation of it, has almost upright sides with two-light windows on the cardinal faces and panelled ones on the oblique sides, while the remaining stages correspond in number and partly in design with those of St. Michaels.

In 1855 it was considered that the bells endangered the safety of the tower, and after recasting by Mears of London they were rehung in a timber campanile in the north churchyard Even now they cannot be pealed

The deplorable refacings have left few features of interest on the outside. Were Gothic architecture still a living and not merely imitative and academic art, one would welcome a complete renewal of all outside work not an imagined harking back to the work of the fifteenth century but showing the lapse of the centuries from the fifteenth to the twentieth as clearly as does the north porch the change from the thirteenth to the fifteenth.

CHAPTER III

THE INTERIOR

It is with a feeling of expectation followed by one of relief that we pass within the church, for restoration has there rarely the same excuse for its devastations as the action of wind and weather on the exterior too generously gives it, and this church is no exception to the general rule.

The clearing away of galleries, the provision of new seating and the renewal of much window tracery have been the principal changes, the greatest loss being the destruction of the Corpus Christi Chapel. The nave is of moderate width and consists of only four bays, the eastern arches being narrower and made to abut against the tower after the manner of flying buttresses. The columns are clusters of four large filleted shafts separated by small ones while the bases are high and evidently meant to be seen above the benches. The caps are shallow and very simple, while the shafts of each pier reappear as part of the arch moulding.

The arcade as a whole is remarkably strong and dignified, it would perhaps have gained by the addition of a bay in length. In the absence of precise records it may be assigned to the second quarter of the fourteenth century or a little later. Above the tower arch can still be seen, beneath the painting and plaster, the marks of the older steep roof. The nave of Stratford-on-Avon Church has points of resemblance to this. There too we have a fourteenth-century arcade (but much simpler) with a fifteenth-century panelled wall and clearstory above, and the panelling comes down on to the backs of the arches in a similar though somewhat simpler manner.

Owing to the inequality of the eastern arches there is, in the position of the windows and roof principals a curious disregard of the lines of the piers and the centres of arches. There are eight equal bays in the roof and each corresponds to two two-light windows. It is interesting to compare the design of this clearstory with that of St. Michael’s. It has more solidity to accord with the more vigorous arcade though the treatment of the panelling is similar. The height from the arch to the roof is much less in proportion, but the sills of the windows are kept lower and the heads are square. The form of the windows is perhaps determined in part by the desire for more space for stained glass, but it is also the logical outcome of the space afforded by the level lines of a wooden roof just as the use of the pointed window follows from the use of pointed vaulting. The treatment of the angles after the manner of the thirteenth century “shouldered” lintel in order to take off the harshness of the rectangular form and to give a better bearing for the lintels is noteworthy and should be compared with the more developed forms at St. John’s Church.

Above the tower arch is a painting of the Last Judgement, discovered in 1831. It is now so much darkened that very little can be made out. The following is a description of its appearance before 1860: In the centre is the Saviour clothed in crimson and seated on a rainbow. Below are the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist with the twelve Apostles arranged on each hand Two angels sound the summons to Judgement, and on the right of our Saviour, steps lead to a portico over which three angels look down on the scene and others welcome a pope who has just passed St. Peter. On the Saviour’s left are doomed spirits being conveyed by devils in various ways and in ludicrous attitudes to the place of torment, represented in the usual manner by the gaping mouth of a monster, vomiting flames of fire. A large painting of a crucifix, with a priest kneeling beside it and angels flying above, was discovered at the same time on the north side of the Chancel but was too much mutilated to be thought worthy of preservation.

The roofs throughout are of low pitch, and almost all resemble one another in design. Those of the nave, chancel, archdeacon’s chapel (on the west of the north porch) and transepts are divided by their principal timbers into large panels, which are again subdivided by mouldings upon the boarded ceiling. At all angles and intersections there are carved leaves, and stars in relief adorn each panel. All these roofs are painted in accordance, it is said, with existing indications of the original colouring. The ground is blue, the mouldings red and white, the stars and carving are gilt. The nave roof spandrels, above the tie-beams, have large painted figures of angels, supporting between them shields emblazoned with the instruments of the Passion. These are also said to be reproductions, but it appears likely that time had left much to the imagination of their restorer.

Nevertheless, the whole effect of the roofs is harmonious, a result apparently obtained by the use of a blue far removed from the ultramarine tint too often employed

Since the removal of the ringing floor, in 1855, the lantern stage of the tower has been once more visible from the church. A wooden vaulted ceiling was at the same time inserted where a stone one had originally been built or intended

The chancel is dark owing to the small clearstory windows, the low outer north aisle, and the concealment of a south window by the organ. At the first pier east of the tower came the rood-screen, and on the south side (in the aisle) the door to it may be seen at a height above the floor. Access must have been by steep steps against the wall, or from the top of another screen across the aisle. The church accounts of the year 1560 tell us what it cost to remove:

Payd for taking down ye rode and Marie and John 4s 4d
Payd to ye carpenter for pullyng down ye rode lofft 4s 8d

On the east side of the tower wall can be seen the line of the original roof, showing the height before the rebuilding in 1391. Although there is space for larger windows the aisle roof prevented their sills being brought lower. The west arch of the south arcade has been forced out of shape by the pressure of the tower piers and arches; certainly the piers, which are little more than 4 feet square, seem slender enough for the support of so lofty a steeple.

Attached to this south-east tower pier is the stone pulpit, one of the two special glories of the church, the other being the brass eagle. The pulpit is either contemporary with the pier or nearly so There is apparently some difference in the texture and colour of the stone, but as it is probable that a finer-grained stone would be chosen for work of this character, this need not imply a difference of date. It was, however, probably added at the same time as the nave clearstory. The authors of “English Church Furniture” assign it to 1470. Before 1833 (when restored by Rickman) it had been hidden from sight by wood-work and a clerk’s desk at a lower level. The lower part is boldly corbelled out and the junction of the octagon with the pier shafts is well managed, but the upper open-panelled part is rather too definitely cut off from the lower by the battlemented cornice. Very few examples of this class of pulpit exist in England, and none equal in importance.

The eagle lectern is a magnificent example of brass casting. It is generally attributed to the late fifteenth century. This eagle narrowly escaped being sold by the Puritans for old brass, as happened to that of St. Michael’s. It closely resembles one belonging to St. Nicholas’ Chapel, Lynn, save that the latter is not equal in refinement of detail and proportion, and the bird is less vigorous in pose and modelling. In 1560 there was “paid for skowring ye Egle and candell styckes, 10d,” and “for mending of ye Egle’s tayle, 16d”

At least nine chapels and fifteen altars are known to have existed in the church. The present choir vestry on the north side was the Lady Chapel. A simple piscina on the south side, about a foot above the present floor, shows that the old floor level was much lower.

The north aisle is lofty and has a clearstory of three windows over the arcade. In the outer aisle was located Marlers, or the Mercers, Chapel, founded in 1537, and beneath it is a crypt or charnel house, now closed save for small ventilating openings.

The black oak roof of low pitch has the panels of the western bay only richly carved with vine leaves and grapes. Its date is, perhaps, as late as the foundation of the chantry. The piscina is in the north wall.

West of the north transept is St. Thomass Chapel. Dugdale says that Allesleys chantry was founded in the time of Edward I, at the altar of St. Thomas the Martyr, in a chapel near adjoining to the church porch. The chapel is certainly older, for the beautiful double doorway from the porch is not later than mid-thirteenth century. The outer doorway of the porch was rebuilt in the fifteenth century. The inner one, with a finely moulded arch with angle shafts and the vault with simple diagonal ribs carried on shafts, is of the early thirteenth century. It is to be regretted that this fine porch is not better seen. Signs of the puzzling reconstructions that have occurred in this part are visible in the aisle wall. Two lancet windows high up are of the same date as the porch, and are blocked by the chamber since constructed above St. Thomass Chapel, and parts of other window jambs are seen at different levels.

The Archdeacon’s Chapel or consistory court, to the west of the porch, is now one of the most interesting parts of the church.

It is divided from the north aisle by two lofty arches with an octagonal column. The original dedication is not known, but in 1588 it was already used as an Ecclesiastical Court, and the next year a bishop’s seat was made for use in it. In the south-west angle is a tall, narrow recess, once closed by a door. Lockers of this description were constructed for the safe keeping of the shaft of the processional cross, and for the staves of banners. On the east side the roof now cuts across the head of a window of reticulated tracery of the early fourteenth century. Most of the monuments have been brought hither from various parts of the church; only two or three are of general interest. A late Perpendicular canopied tomb, rudely carved and badly fitted together, stands against the north wall, but there is nothing to show whom it commemorates. On the east wall is the monument of Dr. Philemon Holland, with a long Latin epitaph. Fuller says of him: “he was the translator general in his age, so that those books alone of his turning into English will make a country gentleman a competent library for historians.” Born at Chelmsford in 1551 he settled at Coventry in 1595, was usher and then master of St. John’s Free School for twenty-eight years, and died in 1636 in his eighty-fifth year. During his usher-ship Dugdale was a pupil of the school.

An engraved brass to John Whithead, who died in 1597, is interesting for the sake of the costumes of himself and his two wives. Three stone coffins have also been deposited here, and two sheets of lead from the roof recording, in fine bold lettering, the repairs executed in 1660 and 1728. In the middle window on the north side are the only remaining fragments of ancient glass. As late as 1779 there were “portraits” of Earl Leofric and the Countess, and also, it is said, a smaller figure of the lady in a yellow dress on a white horse. Part of a small figure holding a spray of leaves and part of a galloping horse are pointed out as the remains of this. To the writer the figure appears to be clearly that of a man, and the horse and rider’s leg not to have belonged to it.

The modern stained glass is very unequal in character, and some is very poor indeed The windows at the west, especially one in memory of Mr. Wm. Chater, a late organist, may be regarded as exceptions. There are still, fortunately, many which are not filled with pious memorials.

The font is the original pre-Reformation one of the fifteenth century, which was removed by the Puritans in 1645 (though devoid of sculpture) and brought back after the Restoration. It stands on three steps, is panelled on bowl and stem, and rather brilliantly adorned with gold and colour.

The south aisle was no doubt divided into two chapels, that on the west belonging to the Barkers’ or Tanners’ Gild A small piscina against the south wall indicates the position of its altar. The wall below the windows is recessed so as to form a seat the whole length of the aisle.

The south transept, containing the Corpus Christi and Cellet’s chantries, has lost its original character completely. The piscina, high up on the south wall, shows that the floor level was some 9 feet above that of the church. The reason for this has been already explained The organ chamber is quite modern. The best authorities place the chapel of the Butchers’ Gild in the south aisle of the chancel, but do not say to whom the eastern chapel in the nave aisle belonged It is known that there was a Jesus Chapel, and, in view of the proximity of Jesus Hall, it is believed by some that this was its position.

The present clergy vestry is a fine room, having an excellent dark oak roof with heavy beams and well carved bosses at the intersections of the timbers. The Royal Arms over the fireplace were painted there in 1632. Although usual, the placing of the king’s arms in churches was not compulsory until the Restoration; few earlier now remain, and this placing of them in the vestry rather than the body of the church is suggestive of a compromise between opposing factions. A portrait of Walter Farquhar Hook, Vicar from 1828-37 and afterwards Dean of Chichester is hung here.

It seems probable that this was a chapel, perhaps that of the Holy Trinity, to whom an altar was dedicated

The history, as traced in the church accounts, of the various organs used in the church gives some idea of the fluctuations of opinion as to the propriety of their use. In 1526 John Howe and John Climmowe, citizens and organ makers of London, contracted to provide, for L30, “a peir of Organs wt vij stopps, ov’r and besides the two Towers of cases, of the pitche of doble Eff, and wt xxvij pleyn keyes, xix musiks, xlvj cases of Tynn and xiiij cases of wood, wt two Starrs and the image of the Trinite on the topp of the sayed orgayns.” In 1570 the “payer of balowes” were sold, and in 1583 the pipes, “wayeng eleven score and thirteen pounds, went for fourpence half-farthing the pound” In 1632 a new one was obtained but its life was short, for in 1641 the Puritan party caused it to be sold “for the best advantage.”

Once more, in 1684, another was purchased from Mr. Robert Hay wood of the City of Bath for L100; then, in 1732, Thomas Swarbrick of Warwick built one for L600, for which a gallery was erected across the nave.

In 1855 this gave place to a new one by Foster and Andrews of Hull, costing L800; and this was rebuilt by Messrs. Hill and Son in 1900.