Holy Trinity Church, Ilfracombe

The Church of the Holy Trinity is the Anglican parish church for Ilfracombe in Devon. The building has been a Grade I listed building since 1951^[1] and comes under the Diocese of Exeter.

Architecture

Standing on the site of a Saxon church, the Norman church was enlarged to its present size in 1322, and the tower incorporated inside the building. Built of mostly random rubble slate walls, some rendered, with limestone dressings, the church has one of the finest wagon-roofs in the West Country dating from the 15th-century which is richly carved with bosses, angels, figures and five Green Men in a row. At the East end of the nave above the former rood screen is a ceilure or Glory, with three bays enriched by cross-ribs and much decoration. The chancel ceiling is modern by George Fellowes Prynne in 1899.^[1] The square baptismal font is Norman of about 1160 and is decorated with three rosettes and ears of wheat on each face with a scalloped underside. It was moved to its present position in 1861 during the 1861-1864 restoration by John Hayward.^[1] The Elizabethan pulpit has arched columns and panels containing floral motifs. The lychgate and the vestry date from 1894^[1] and are by Henry Wilson, the best pupil of J. D. Sedding.^[2][3]

The first recorded

The church has numerous monuments.[3] There is a small brass cross which commemorates six men of the parish who died during World War I.^[4] In the churchyard is buried Anna Catherine Parnell, the Irish nationalist and younger sister of Charles Stewart Parnell.^[5] Also in the churchyard are buried 19 British servicemen who died during World War I and whose graves are maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)^[6] along with those of two Belgian Foreign Nationals.^[7]

References

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