Default Image Place of Worship has been
Demolished.
Image by courtesy of
openclipart.org

Holy Trinity Church (Demolished),
Westgate, by entrance to Bull Lane,
Gloucester, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We don't know whether this Church had a graveyard.

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded before 1176, but we understand it was closed in 1698.

From Thomas Fosbrooke's History of the City of Gloucester (1819): the parish of Holy Trinity was "anciently a rectory, but in 1391 became a vicarage appropriated to St Peter's Abbey, and granted at the Dissolution to the Dean and Chapter". The priests of the church used to live in a house in Gore Lane which was "anciently called Trinity College", though "now" (ie c.1819) "part of the endowment of the School and Hospital at Cheltenham".

During the Civil War, Fosbrooke tells us, it was used (together with St Mary de Lode) as a gaol for Welsh prisoners taken from Lord Herbert. In 1648, the parish was united with St Nicholas by an Ordinance of Parliament, and the Church granted to the Corporation, "to be employed as an English School", though it became a separate parish once again at the Restoration.

The Church stood in the middle of Westgate Street "nearly opposite to the Upper College Court, and consisted of one aisle, with a beautiful tower at the West end". It may have suffered damage during the Civil War, as most of the structure was taken down in 1698, to leave just the west end and tower. The church was apparently closed at this time, but the remaining structure continued to be used for some 50 years afterwards as an "engine-house" (steam?). This too was taken down in 23 Geo II. (1750), together with a row of buildings which occupied the middle of the street between the church and the Cross, to allow greater street access. The materials were subsequently sold to rebuild the parish church of Upton on Severn.

According to Gray & Ralph's Guide to the Parish Records of the City of Bristol and County of Gloucester there are records of burials in its parish registers between 1557 and 1649, and a handful after 1649, but we believe there is cause to doubt that it ever had a graveyard, as its position in the middle of the street would have made an adjacent burial site impractical. Perhaps therefore these entries refer to burials of parishioners in the nearby churchyard of St Michael. [Sources: Revd. Thomas Dudley Fosbrooke, An Original History of the City of Gloucester (1819), John Williams, Rosemary Lockie, and I. Gray & E. Ralph, Guide to the Parish Records of the City of Bristol and the County of Gloucester (1963)]

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church was located at OS grid reference SO8306718647. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Holy Trinity Church (Demolished), Gloucester shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Gloucester shown on a Google Map.
• Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
• Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
• OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
• A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
• www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)