Holy Trinity Church

Holy Trinity Church stands in Camp Hill, Bordesley, Birmingham, a former Church of England parish church built between 1820 and 1822. Designed by Francis Goodwin in the Gothic Revival style, it cost £14,235, raised by local subscriptions and a grant from the Parliamentary Commissioners. The church was modelled on King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, and consecrated in 1823 by the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. Its exterior features Bath stone, pinnacled buttresses, octagonal turrets and a recessed entrance arch with a decorated west window. Inside, the rectangular plan includes a shallow canted apse, ornate galleries and a coved ceiling with lierne rib patterns. The church played a key role in the High Church movement, beginning with its first vicar and followed by Rev Dr Joseph Oldknow, Birmingham’s first Ritualist priest. Oldknow was buried here, and Latin inscriptions on gravestones reflect its Anglo-Catholic history. His successor, Richard William Enraght, became nationally known during the Bordesley Wafer Case in 1880, when he was imprisoned for ritualist practices under the Public Worship Regulation Act. The trial sparked widespread controversy and led to his eventual removal in 1883. Visitors find a building with a rectangular plan, shallow apse and Bath-stone exterior enlivened by buttresses and turrets. Inside, the shallow porch leads to an ornate tripartite doorway with an ogee arch and finial, characteristic of Goodwin’s design. The west window’s cast-iron tracery and the east-end rose remain visible, though the ceiling’s decoration has been stripped and a floor inserted. The burial ground, closed in 1873, once held graves with Latin inscriptions, and the churchyard’s remains were partly relocated during road widening. Though now empty, the structure retains its Gothic Revival grandeur and historical significance.