Listed Building record MDR12334 - Holy Trinity Church, Buxton Road, Whaley Bridge

A temporary chapel-of-ease dedicated to the Holy Trinity is situated in Horwich End. At no distant date a permanent edifice will take its place. (1) This temporary chapel-of-ease is marked on the 2nd edition OS map. (2) By the 3rd edition OS map, this temporary structure is gone and the church has taken its present form. (3) An Anglican church and attached rear boundary wall that were built in 1903-05, with alterations and additions in 1922. The church was built by P H Currey, architect, with extensions designed in collaboration with C C Thompson. It was built of random rubble gritstone with ashlar gritstone dressings, beneath a slate roof covering laid to diminishing courses. It was built in Free Gothic Revival style. It has an irregular cruciform plan, with nave, chancel, north porch and vestries, and south organ chamber, from which a south aisle was planned to extend westwards. The east end faces onto the road with a stepped gabled front, the left hand gable set back, and with side wall buttresses. The chancel gable to the right has pilaster buttresses. At the west end, the gabled north porch has an extended apex forming a bell canopy. The porch is half-timbered with a deep masonry plinth, and a wide east doorway with a semi-circular arched head, and studded and planked double doors with heavy Arts and Crafts style strap hinges and door furniture. Extending north-eastwards from the porch, is a dog-legged masonry retaining wall with saddle back copings and a low terminal pier flanking a short flight of stone steps to the basement below the west end of nave. This has an ashlar framed, flat-headed doorway, with a planked and studded door with heavy strap hinges. The nave west gable has ashlar copings, and shallow corner buttresses. The south side wall has infilled openings of a five-bay arcade, which was intended for a planned south aisle. It now has wide shallow buttresses. At the east end, is an incomplete gable of the organ chamber, with a canvas covering to the gable apex. At the junction of the nave and chancel roofs, there is a low, diagonally-set square bell tower with a shallow pyramidal roof. Inside is a five-bay nave, with arch-braced collar trusses that have short king posts, with intermediate open collar trusses. There is a three-bay waggon roof to the chancel with collar beams and slender king posts. The south wall of the nave has an infilled arcade, incorporating octagonal columns and stylised foliated capitals below stepped and chamfered pointed arches. The chancel south wall has a pointed arched opening to the organ chamber, and plain sedilia. There is a contemporary chancel screen with a shallow canopy and miniature tracery between plain chamfered mullions. This, together with the choir stalls, reading desk and table, altar rail and pulpit of matching design, are probably by Currey. (4)