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

Holy Trinity Church, Buxton Road, Whaley Bridge, built c1903. '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) From the National Heritage List for England: 'SKO181 WHALEY BRIDGE FERNILEE, Taxal 912/2/10011 Holy Trinity Church and attached rear boundary wall II Anglican church and attached rear boundary wall. 1903-05, with alterations and additions in 1922. By P.H. Currey, architect, with extensions designed in collaboration with C.C. Thompson. Random rubble gritstone with ashlar gritstone dressings beneath a slate roof covering laid to diminishing courses. Free Gothic Revival style. PLAN: Irregular cruciform plan, with nave, chancel, north porch and vestries, and south organ chamber, from which a south aisle was planned to extend westwards. EXTERIOR: East end facing onto road with stepped gabled front, the left hand gable set back, and with side wall buttresses and a small 2 light pointed arched window at high level. Chancel gable to right with pilaster buttresses and a 3-light east window with hood mould and block stops below a small niche with a corbelled hood. North side with twin asymmetrical gables to vestries, that to the east with a 3-light flat headed window with cusped lights and a doorway with a chamfered ashlar surround and arched head. Gable to west with 5-light flat headed window. Further west, set-back nave north wall with segmental arch headed 3-light window set be!ween shallow buttresses. At west end, gabled north p.orch with extended apex forming bell canopy. The porch is half- timbered with a deep masonry plinth, Iand 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. North side wall with shallow 6-light timber mullioned window. Extending north-eastwards from the porch, a dog-legged masonry retaining wall with saddle back copings and low terminal pier flanking short flight of stone steps to basement below west end of nave. This has an ashlar framed, flat-headed doorway with planked and studded door with heavy strap hinges. Nave west gable with ashlar copings, shallow corner buttresses and broad shallow pointed arched 6-light west window with cusped lights. South side wall with infilled openings of a 5-bay arcade intended for a planned south aisle, now with wide shallow buttresses and small2-light windows with leaded glazing. At east end, incomplete gable of organ chamber, with canvas covering to gable apex. At junction of nave and chancel roofs, a low, diagonally-set square bell tower with a shallow pyramidal roof. INTERIOR: 5-bay nave with arch-braced collar trusses with short king posts, with intermediate open collar trusses. 3-bay waggon roof to chancel with collar beams and slender king posts. South wall of nave with infilled arcade incorporating octagonal columns and styalised foliated capitals below stepped and chamfered pointed arches. Chancel south wall with pointed arched opening to organ chamber, and plain sedilia. FURNISHINGS: Contemporary chancel screen with shallow canopy and minature 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. v Listing NGR: SK0106180853.' (4)