Listed Building record MDR12136 - Church of the Holy Trinity, Church Drive, Shirebrook

Church of the Holy Trinity, Church Drive, Shirebrook, built in 1844. 'The present building is on the site of an earlier chapel. Very little is known about the history of this chapel of Shirebrook. Lysons simply remarks: 'there is a chapel of ease at Shirebrook, at which divine service is performed once a month by the rector of Pleasley or his curate'. The building was kept in good repair through a tax levied on the inhabitants of the Township. Interestingly, the building was referred to as 'church' as often as it was 'chapel'. In 1754 the building underwent considerable repairs. The taxation roll of 1291 does not ascribe any chapel to Pleasley, nor is it mentioned in the 'Valor Ecclesiaticus' of Henry VIII. It is mentioned by the Parliamentary Commissioners of 1650: 'Shirbrook is a chapel of ease, in the parish of Plesley. The chapel is thought fitt to be disused and the village connected to Plesley. One William Thorpe officiates at Sherbrooke, who was formerly sequestred out of Carsington in the hundred of Wirksworth'.' (1) From the National Heritage List for England: 'SK 56 NW TOWN OF SHIREBROOK CHURCH DRIVE 8/153 (South Side) Church of the Holy Trinity II Parish church. 1844 by Patterson & Hind of Nottingham, at a cost of £1000. This part now the south aisle. Nave and chancel 1904, east wall 1958. Norman and Early English styles. Coursed squared rock-faced sandstone and sandstone ashlar. Welsh slate roofs and stone coped gables with moulded kneelers. Nave and chancel in one, west narthex; nave and chancel of earlier church now forming south aisle and chapel. South west porch and south vestry. West narthex across the width of the nave, set between flying buttresses. Gabled central entrance bay has a doorway with an arch of three chamfered orders. C20 glazed double doors. Flanked by buttresses turning into polygonal turrets topped by foliage finials. Flanked in turn by pairs of trefoil headed lancets. Openwork parapet with round arches, and outer buttresses gabletted and panelled. Large tripartite west window of three stepped lancets with tracery of bold quatrefoil motifs and blind quatrefoils either side of the taller lancet, with cherubs heads set in. All set within a blind super arch and forming a kind of plate tracery. Hoodmould with carved stops. Three stepped louvred lancet slits above again. The north side has a narrow lean-to aisle of four bays divided by pilaster buttresses. Plainly chamfered lancets, two to each bay of the aisle and groups of three to the clerestory above. The south side has triplets of clerestory lancets as to the north. Large gabled south aisle, the nave of the earlier church. Neo-Norman style. Gabled bellcote with chamfered round arch, on the west gable. Gabled west porch has a round-arched doorway of two chamfered orders to the south, and a chamfered round-arched window to the west. Tall round-arched window above of two chamfered orders and with a hoodmould. Pairs of blind, chamfered, round-arched windows on each side. Lean-to bay between the porch and the early C20 nave, has one chamfered round-arched window to the west. The south side has a continuous chamfered sill band and four bays, each with a recessed panel divided by stop- chamfered pilaster buttresses. A chamfered round-arched lancet to each bay. Rounded corbels along the top of each panel. Gabled south vestry has a blind round arch to the west and a chamfered round-arched window to the south. East end of the former chancel has a broad round-arched window with a roll moulding on colonettes with volute capitals. Bald plate tracery of three chamfered round-arched lights with a circle above pierced by a small circle surrounded by a ring of small circles. The main east wall was built in 1958, replacing a temporary east wall awaiting the intended erection of a new chancel. Circular east window with tracery of three ovals. Interior: The porch of the old church has an inner round-arched doorway with roll moulding and one order of colonettes with volute capitals. The old church has a round-arched chancel arch of two chamfered orders. The two naves are divided by two broad double-chamfered pointed arches. Low circular pier with roll-moulded polygonal capital and demi responds. Similar north arcade of four bays. The piers are banded in contrasting coloured stone. Three bay west arcade of similar style but smaller proportions. Chamfered and moulded chancel arch on semi-circular responds. Capitals with naturalistic foliage. Many of the chancel furnishings date from the 1960s by Frank Knight of Wellingborough. Brass eagle lectern dated 1904. Square neo-Norman font on a base of five shafts and with colonettes in the cut-away angles of the bowl, which bares the inscription In Nomine/Patris/et filis/Spiritus Sancti. Stained glass; two south windows of the early 1930s by Abbott & Co. of Lancaster. Brass memorial tablet to Joseph Paget, died 1896, by Benham & Froud of London. Another to Rev. John Cargill, died 1876, by Cox & Sons of London. Plain roofs. Royal Arms above the west arcade, in cast metal and restored in 1966. Listing NGR: SK5247567509.' (2)