Welcome to the website of the Holy Trinity Church, Eccleshall 

In the 600s heathen Mercian's sacked the settlements that were called Ecles halh - indicating they had found a Christian church here on the land bordered by water. In all probability they destroyed the building, which had been replaced by the time St. Chad became the first Bishop of Lichfield in 669.

But in 1010 the Danes laid waste to Eccleshall, including the church, which then stood in ruins for the next 80 years or so.

In 1090 it was re-built and dedicated to the Holy Trinity, but it was to last only a century. By the reign of King Richard I work had commenced on a new building in the transitional Norman style. A nave measuring 66 by 27 feet was marked out by the 12 round pillars of grey sandstone, each with a different capital and still carrying evidence of early decoration, which support large, plain pointed arches.

Also dating from this Norman period is the lower part of the west wall which later became the base of the tower.

Looking west along the nave, it is still easy to spot the line of the Norman roof, high up in a wall which was opened out when the lower part of the tower was constructed in the 13^th century.

It was in the 13^th century that the work began on replacing Holy Trinity's Norman chancel with one in the Early English style only 8 feet shorter than the nave. The five lancet windows on the south side, the priest's vestry and the arches beneath the organ all date from this time, though the five light east window is Victorian - installed during the restoration of the church in the 1860s.

The magnificent reredos, in alabaster from Weston-on-Trent, dates from the end of the 19^th century.

Further changes in Holy Trinity's appearance came in the 15^th century. The principal work at this time - adding much to the grace and beauty - was the construction of the perpendicular clerestory in the warm red sandstone, which is in sharp contrast to the materials used by the Normans in the nave. The upper stages of the tower - including the two-light bell openings under one ogee arch - were also added at this period. The south aisle was widened and the porch enlarged with the vaulting.

Outwardly since then Eccleshall Church has remained virtually unaltered.

Kenneth Bowe.
 

Early History and a

Tour of the Church

In 1086 it was recorded in the Domesday Book that the Manor of Ecleshale was held by the Bishop and that St Chad once held it. Chad came to the kingdom of Mercia in 669 AD and was ordained the fifth Bishop of Mercia. He established his Episcopal see in Lichfield, thereby becoming the first Bishop of Lichfield.

The manor of Eccleshall was one of the first areas to be presented to the Bishopric and we can assume that it was of some value and there would have been a centre of population here and numerous small villages around. There was a Saxon preaching cross and, later, in all probability a small wooden church of which nothing remains.

Following the Norman Conquest of 1066 the people of Staffordshire did not readily accept the new ruling class and rebelled, with the result that King William ruthlessly put the county to waste and the see of Lichfield was vacant from 1067 to 1072 when Petrus, who was Chancellor to King William, became Bishop. He moved the seat of the Diocese to Chester, possibly because of the continuing poverty in Staffordshire.

Other Bishops came and went and it was not until 1129 that Roger de Clinton moved the see back to  Lichfield and began to found religious houses.

It is believed that a small Norman church was founded in Eccleshall and this in turn was replaced by the present structure, the foundations and pillars dating from c.1189 when Hugo Nonant was Bishop. Bishop Nonant was a friend of John, brother  of king Richard 1, and they both took advantage of the king’s almost continual absence on the crusades to further their own ends and to amass considerable wealth.

The dimensions of Holy Trinity were fixed at this time when the bishop had ample resources to fortify the manor house by adding a large stone keep and to build a church nearby of ample proportions, possibly to impress his visitors.

On Richard’s return, Nonant and his brother were charged with stealing the King’s ransom money and the Bishop hurriedly fled to the Continent, never to return. 1198 Geoffrey Muschamp became Bishop and he continued to work in Eccleshall, both at the church and the castle, having received licence to crenellate the latter in 1200.

In the 13th century, the old Norman chancel was replaced with one in the Early English style which is only eight feet shorter than the nave. In the 15th century came the addition of the lovely clerestory of perpendicular design and the tower was raised to its present height.

From that time the church has changed little externally, but the inside has been a great deal altered. In the days of the Plantagenet kings and later the walls were plastered with coats of arms and biblical themes and armourial shields were also depicted in the medieval stained glass windows.

HOLY TRINITY’S VICTORIAN

AND LATER HISTORY

HOLY TRINITY Church’s internal appearance today is closely linked to the story of  a much-loved Bishop of Lichfield.

In the 1860s work began on a major restoration of the church’s interior intended to mark the 25^th anniversary of John Lonsdale becoming bishop in 1843. But he died – suddenly  – before the project could be completed and so the changes which should have been a celebration of his life became instead his memorial.

It was understandable that Eccleshall’s parishioners should have wished to celebrate Lonsdale’s many years as bishop.

It was not only that his passing, on October 19^th 1867 , had brought “universal sorrow”.  He lived nearby at the castle and  had a strong bond with the parish church, using it as a “mini cathedral” and carrying out  many ceremonies there which normally would have taken place in Lichfield.  Over the years, for instance, he ordained 567 deacons and 646 priests in Eccleshall.

Most of the restoration work undertaken in the 1860s focused on the chancel, which had been much altered just a few decades earlier. A  Victorian photograph shows a rounded east window and chancel arch to match, a low roof and box pews extending well into the chancel itself.  But all this was swept away after a vestry meeting in April 1866 decided that the church was in “much need of repair”.

Parishioners, headed by wardens Edward Lyon and Francis Lycett  resolved unanimously to apply for a faculty to restore and enlarge the church, re-arrange the pews and remove two galleries, one at the west end and the other in the chancel aisle, which were seen as “injuring the building”.

Not everyone, though, had been unhappy with the church at this time. Sophia Lonsdale, John Lonsdale’s grand-daughter, recalled it as “a wonderful place”.

She wrote in her memoirs: “It was full of high pews, but the most magnificent was the castle pew, in the middle of which the Bishop’s throne was erected and on which my grandfather sat, without his robes, though he always gave the blessing at the end of the service.”

The Victorians brought in the eminent architect George Edmund Street to survey the church and a prospectus of 1866 records the proposed “improvements”.

The roofs of the north and south aisles, apparently badly decayed, were to be completely replaced, the north wall re-built on an entirely new foundation – widening the aisle by four feet – and the ceiling of the nave removed and the roof above panelled.

In the chancel, the round-headed window was replaced by the present five-light window in Early English style, which the 19^th century parishioners considered to be more like the original.  A new pointed chancel arch was also built and the chancel roof raised to its original pitch.

The old box pews were ripped out and new seating in oak for a total of 814 people – 674 adults and 167 children – installed. And at the west end of the church a baptistery and choir vestry were added to form chambers to the north and south of the tower.

The faculty for the improvements made it clear that the whole expense should be “defrayed by voluntary contribution and in no part by rate”, but in many of the subscriptions that began to flow in were given in testimony of the respect held for Bishop John Lonsdale, who resided at nearby Eccleshall Castle. In view of this it was agreed that the restoration should celebrate the silver jubilee of his episcopacy – but  the 79 year-old bishop died while the work was still under way.

It is perhaps difficult these days to appreciate the esteem in which  Lonsdale was held.  He was acclaimed at the time of his death as the best bishop the diocese had ever had, the “perfect model of justice, kindness, humility and shrewd sense”.

Lonsdale was a Yorkshire man, born on January 17^th 1788, at Newmillardam, near Wakefield, the eldest son of another John who was Vicar of Darfeld, just outside Barnsley, and perpetual curate of Chapelthorpe. .

Young  John Lonsdale’s initial intention, after leaving Cambridge, was to become a barrister and he was in fact admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1811, but he very soon decided to forsake the Bar for the Church and was ordained in October, 1815.  His first appointment was as chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners Sutton, who in 1822 gave him the rectory of Mersham, near Ashford, Kent.  A number of appointments followed until in 1843 he succeeded James Bowstead  - who had died in his forties following an accident - as Bishop of Lichfield.

A wonderful insight into John Lonsdale’s character is given by his grand-daughter. “He was generally spoken of as a very fatherly Bishop,” she says. “But he was much more than that. Archdeacon Moor was talking one day to my Aunt Lucy about a deputation which had come to Eccleshall to try and get the Bishop to do something he didn’t want to do. ‘Ah’, said the Archdeacon, ‘they don’t know that there are two men in that study. One is the kind fatherly old Bishop who they think they can twist round their fingers; the other is the shrewd man of the world who is never taken in’”.

Sophia Lonsdale said her grandfather had “a fine personal appearance, being tall and upright with beautiful white hair”.

On October 19^th 1867 the old Bishop had returned from a Wolverhampton congress, appearing well but tired. He apparently put off dinner and retired to his study to write 20 letters.

His son-in-law, Edmund Beckett – later first Lord Grimthorpe – recalls that Lonsdale later drank some wine and began to eat his dinner, but, unusually, asked one of his daughters to carve for him. Presently, without a word, he laid his head upon his hand and fell back, breathed heavily for a few minutes and died.

Five days later 200 clergy from all parts of the diocese joined Eccleshall parishioners to fill all available space in the still scaffolded Holy Trinity Church “in which his voice had been expected to be heard again at the opening service within a few months”.  He was buried in the north-east corner of the churchyard, where his grave is marked by a tall Celtic cross in Aberdeen granite.

John Lonsdale had one other claim to fame – he was the last Bishop of Lichfield to reside at Eccleshall Castle, breaking a tradition going back many centuries.  His successor, George Augustus Selwyn,  first Bishop of New Zealand – who had been most reluctant to take on his new role and was only persuaded to do so by Queen Victoria -  preferred to base himself in Lichfield and the castle subsequently passed into private ownership.

Less than 30 years after the major restoration of Holy Trinity came another change, this time commemorating a local man who, it seems, was almost as universally popular as John Lonsdale.

At a vestry meeting on April 7^th 1892 parishioners passed on their “warm thanks” to Mrs Chambers, of Walton Hall, near Eccleshall, for her offer of a new sculptured reredos, in Staffordshire alabaster, as a memorial to her husband, Col. Francis Chambers -  who is also commemorated by a small window in the north wall of the chancel and by the church lych gate – who had died, aged 80, in February 1891.

The colonel, who was not buried in Eccleshall but preferred instead to lie alongside his kinsmen, the Elds, in Seighford churchyard, was remembered for “his kindness to the poor and his courteous manner towards all”

A report of his funeral recalls:  “Probably not since the death of Bishop Lonsdale at Eccleshall Castle has there been so much universal interest awakened throughout the whole neighbourhood.

“ The gentry and clergy were very numerously represented, but the most touching demonstration was the crowds of people who gathered at convenient places along the route of the funeral procession from Walton Hall to Seighford Church and the sad and tear stained faces of the widowed and aged which betokened the sincerity of their sorrow for the loss of a friend who was never known to turn a deaf ear to a tale of suffering or misery.”

The design of Holy Trinity’s new reredos was by Basil Champneys, well known for Manchester’s Rylands Library and already familiar locally as he was at the time designing a chapel of ease at Slindon, which Sir Nikolaus Pevsner was to describe as “a little gem”.

The reredos, like the lych gate, was the work of Bridgemans of Lichfield.

Another major project which was to greatly enhance the interior of the church stemmed from a tragedy which hit a prominent local family in the 1920s. Susan Mary Lowe, of Sugnall Hall, near Eccleshall, had died of meningitis in 1927, at the age of 21, and her grieving parents decided that some improvement to the church would be the best way to remember her. At that time, to the north of the chancel, was a dark and gloomy chapel which was hardly ever used, and an old manually pumped organ.

The Lowes decided to refurbish the chapel and also give a new organ which would have a carved casing to link in with the chapel. William Douglas Caroe, an eminent architect of Danish descent, who was chosen to plan the work, decided to use limed oak for the panels and carvings.  Bridgemans of Lichfield were again employed to carry out the carving.

The organ, with its enormous casing, has three manuals – swell, great and quiet – and electronic action. It was undoubtedly regarded by parishioners as an immense improvement – except by the choirboys who had been used to earning sixpence (2.5p) an hour for pumping the old instrument.

A second tragedy which was to hit the Lowe family years later resulted in the chapel becoming a double memorial. The name of Susan Mary’s sister, Margaret Ellen Hayes was added to the chapel screen following her death in an air crash in Cuba in 1977.

When in September 1954 Susan Mary’s father, Charles Edwin Lowe, died at the age of 86, his widow, Susan Anne, gave as a gift the church in his memory two inscribed bells, which were installed when the six original bells were re-hung on a new steel frame. This generous gift is commemorated by a plaque at the base of the tower.

There are a number of books available from the church about the history of the building also the town's library will be able to supply much information.