History

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“A fine large parish church below the bridge on the banks of the Avon”
John Leland 1542

The parish of Holy Trinity has its origins in a Saxon Minster which administered an area roughly corresponding to the current hundred of Bradford. The Minster left a legacy of seven chapelries to the parish; Atworth, Broughton Gifford, Holt, Limpley Stoke, South Wraxall, Westwood and Winsley, all of which had assumed parish status by the mid 19th century. The parish and the wider area of North and West Wiltshire have a long history of non-conformity, perhaps stemming from the close connections between Lollardy and the cloth trade.

The present church was built around 1150 and originally consisted of a chancel, nave and maybe a tower. The chancel was lengthened around the beginning of the 13th century, and a section of the south east wall rebuilt in 1707. A Lady Chapel was added to the north-east side of the nave in the early 14th century and later that century a chantry was added behind the Lady Chapel. The two were made into the current north aisle sometime after the Reformation and its roof retains the 16th century roof bosses. In the late-15th/early-16th century the chancel and tower arches were rebuilt; the Lady Chapel converted to a Chantry; and another chantry (the Kingston Chapel) added on the south-east side of the nave. The town was very wealthy from the cloth trade at this time, and work may also have included raising the tower to accommodate a ring of five bells. The graceful tower arch is the only remnant of this work.

Nothing much is known about the church for about two hundred years after the Reformation. The tower was struck by lightening in 1612, which destroyed the clock frame and caused a great deal of damage. The 18th century was wealthy from the cloth trade and saw a great deal of repair and refurbishment to the church. The chief remnant is the painting of the Last Supper 'indifferently painted by a local artist’, originally hung over the east window and now in the tower vestry. The bells were augmented to eight in 1735 and the first chimes were installed the following year. Only a small fragment of the Norman nave remains in the north- east corner. The roof, south wall, the sixteenth century chantry chapel, the porch; the chancel arch and the north nave wall arcade were all rebuilt between 1864 and 1866. Finds during this rebuilding included Saxon stonework, now in the Saxon church, and Norman and Early English stonework used as rubble in the porch and chantry chapel walls in the previous re-build.

During the early 20th century the chancel was re-ordered; the sacristy created from the Kingston Chapel and the north aisle altar set up. The crossing area was also re-ordered. The last vicar, Canon William Andrew Matthews, Chaplain to The Queen, was here for twenty-eight years from 1981 and during that time much work was done: choir stalls replaced; window guards installed; the roof and lighting renewed; the organ refurbished and the bells re-hung. The latest work was the recent refurbishment of the tower vestry and sacristy.

The Minster originally belonged to the nunnery at Winchester, but most of the land was transferred to Shaftsbury Abbey in 1000 AD after the murder of Edmund, King and Martyr, and the church was appropriated by the Abbey in 1343. After the attainder of William Byrde (see below) the patronage passed briefly to the crown, then to the Dean and Chapter of Bristol and finally to the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury.

Former Vicars of Holy Trinity include William Byrde, also Rector of Fittleton and chaplain to Lord Hungerford, who was hanged, drawn and quartered in 1540. His successor was Thomas Morley, the last Abbot of Stanley, a Cistercian Abbey between Chippenham and Calne, who became the suffragan Bishop of Marlborough in 1537 after the dissolution of the abbey. Frederick Blomberg, a son of George III, was twice an absentee Vicar in the early 19th century and the town still reveres Canon Jones who ‘discovered’ the Saxon Church and was largely responsible for the rebuilding of 1864-66.