1901 - Holy Trinity Church - Prince Consort Road, London, UK - Dated Buildings and Cornerstones on Waymarking.com

An information board at the front of the church tells us:

Holy Trinity Church
Prince Consort Road

Originally the chapel of a leper hospital
was rebuilt in 1609 and was known as
Knightsbridge Chapel.
This was replaced in 1901 by the present
Parish Church, Henry Bartholomew Coward
being the first vicar
& George Frederick Bodley the architect

The church's website tells us:

Early History

Holy Trinity began its history as a chapel on Knightsbridge Green, attached to a leper hospital founded by Westminster Abbey, who to this day are patrons of the Parish. In 1629 the chapel had become so dilapidated that a petition was made to Archbishop Laud, when he was Bishop of London, for permission to rebuild.. It was granted and a new building arose on part of the land currently occupied by the Parkside block of flats, just west of Hyde Park Corner. Laud gave a silver Communion Chalice, still owned by our church, but now displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum .

The chapel was rebuilt again in 1699, and renovated in 1789. A new church, Holy Trinity Knightsbridge, was erected on its site in 1861. A photo of its street frontage survives (scan coming soon). In 1901, it was demolished and transferred from its site in Knightsbridge to Prince Consort Road , where a new church and vicarage were erected to the designs of G F Bodley and C G Hare.

Holy Trinity was a late addition to the churches of Kensington. In 1842, there were only three churches in the area of South Kensington : St Mary Abbots, Holy Trinity in Brompton Road , and St Barnabas, Addison Road . In the next 35 years, fourteen new parishes were established, the design and building of which involved many of the best Victorian ecclesiastical architects of the day. By the 1870s, most of these were completed. The move of Holy Trinity to Prince Consort Road took place in 1901 where a site was found to the south west of the Albert Hall, at that time just in Kensington, and the new church was planned as Holy Trinity Church, South Kensington. It still carries this title even though by 1901 the land had been ceded to Westminster in exchange for Kensington Palace , which at Queen Victoria 's behest had been moved from Westminster to Kensington.

What is special about this building?

Commissioning a church from the Bodley architectural practice often meant that you were going to get a church built in the 14 th century late perpendicular style. Holy Trinity is no exception. It shows in the exterior facade, which is in this style and is said to bear a close similarity to the west front of Bury St Edmund's Cathedral.

But it is the interior that is outstanding, perhaps one of the finest examples of Bodley's work. The loftiness of its interior and the lavish fixtures and fittings almost transport one back to the decorative condition of churches before the Reformation. �The tall slender piers of the nave and the wagon roof of the nave and chancel remind one of the great Perpendicular churches of the west country. Absolutely nothing is wanting, from the chequered marble floor to the statues filling the niches flanking the great east window.�

The interior is a showpiece of the very best ecclesiastical fixtures and fittings of the Edwardian era. All the major decoration in the church, including the reredos, the altar, the choir stalls, the stained glass, the pulpit, and the font are all designed by Bodley and created very closely to his original plans. After the death of Bodley in 1907, the work was supervised by C G Hare, his partner, who was also responsible for the design of the organ casing. Here then is a building of great wealth and most unusually for most town churches of that date, of great completeness.

Even in its 14 th century Perpendicular style, at the same time it conveys an aura of the comfortable, wealthy, and confident years of the reign of Edward VII, with its pride in Britain and the Empire. It is a beautiful church, which is at the same time both a Gothic church and a church of its time.

The church is a Grade I listed building with the entry at the English Heritage website telling us:

Church. 1901 to 1907. G F Bodley. Bath stone. Pitched slate roof to parapet. Decorated Perpendicular style. Five bay nave, leanto aisles with additional four-bay aisle to liturgical north side; chancel with Lady Chapel to north; bell turret to western gable. Hall church interior with tall arcades having quatrefoil piers; barrel roof; no clerestory. East window of seven lights with reticulated tracery, and stained glass designed by Bodley and made by Burlison and Grylls in 1907. Fine interior fittings including altar, pulpit, chancel stalls, reredos, font, stained glass, etc, much designed by Bodley himself.

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