Holy Trinity Sloane Street
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| Holy Trinity Sloane Street | |
|---|---|
| The Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity | |
| Information | |
| Denomination | Church of England |
| Architect(s) | John Dando Sedding |
| Constructed | 1888-1890 |
| Dedicated | 1890 |
| Contact particulars | |
| Address | Sloane Street, London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
Holy Trinity Sloane Street (The Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity with St Jude, Upper Chelsea, sometimes known as Holy Trinity Sloane Square) is a London anglican parish church, built in 1888-90 at the south-eastern side of Sloane Street to a striking Arts & Crafts design by the architect John Dando Sedding at the cost of the 5th Earl Cadogan, in whose London estate it lay. It replaced an earlier building only half its size which, at the time of its demolition, was less than sixty years old.
Holy Trinity was built on a grand scale, suddenly becoming, if not the longest church in the capital then, strangely, the widest, eclipsing St Paul's Cathedral by four inches. The internal fittings were the work of leading sculptors and designers of the day, including F. W. Pomeroy, H. H. Armstead, Onslow Ford and Hamo Thorneycroft. In 1891 Sedding died (his memorial can be seen on the north wall in the Lady Chapel) and Henry Wilson took charge of the project to complete the interior decoration of the building to the original design. In part, he failed, for some of the glass was never installed, nor was the important addition of a frieze beneath the high windows even attempted. Some of the internal sculpture/carving is still incomplete. In the 1920s the interior was whitened by F. C. Eden, lightening the character and feel of the building considerably.
The church houses an important collection of stained glass, including an enormous east window by Burne-Jones/Morris; and other windows by William Blake Richmond (including some highly decadent imagery), Powells (the Memorial Chapel) and by Christopher Whall (the incomplete clerestory sequence). The large west window, which William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones had apparently hoped to complete before moving onto the east window, was never done and the plain glass in it was eventually destroyed by enemy action, although all the other windows survived. The interesting project to glaze the west window remains to be realized at some time in the future.
The churchmanship at the time of the opening of the new building might have been described as an eclectic High Churchmanship, such that the liturgy seems to have been drawn from a number of sources and traditions, although at this distance it is hard to gauge exactly what exactly was done. After a long period of less symbolic worship, notably under the long tenure of Alfred Basil Carver (1945-1980), the building has now returned to a liberal Catholic style of worship.
The church was badly damaged by incendiary bombs in the Second World War but was restored more or less to its previous appearance by the early 1960s. In an incredibly odd move, there was then a concerted attempt by the church authorities to close and demolish the building, replacing it with something smaller: this was successfully prevented by a campaign led by John Betjeman and the Victorian Society. The building now houses a thriving congregation built during the ten years under the incumbency of Michael Eric Marshall (1997-2007), the former Bishop of Woolwich.
Holy Trinity had a reputation for anglican church music from the early days, for Sedding was himself an organist, providing in the ground plan of the building an unusually large chamber for the famous four-manual Walker organ to occupy at the north-east corner. Notable organists have included Edwin Lemare (1892-5), Sir Walter Alcock (1895-1902) and H. L. Balfour (1902-42), all of whom were leading men in their field; and the tradition continues to this day.
[edit] Holy Trinity today
The Players of St Peter, a company devoted to performing medieval mystery plays were based here from 1988 to 1997.[1]
Recently, Holy Trinity Sloane Street has sponsored international Christian links through a network of Friends. It is host church for the Trinity Foundation for Christianity and Culture (TFCC), a teaching and outreach organization dedicated in part to the increase of interfaith understanding and respect, with branches in other parts of the world, notably in the Middle East and North America.
