We have 10 Images Above Photograph(s)
Copyright of John Williams

Parish Church of the Holy Trinity and the Blessed Virgin Mary,
Church Road / Old Cheltenham Road, GL2 0AJ,
Longlevens, Gloucester, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Church does NOT have 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 in 1873, and we understand it is still open.

Holy Trinity's origins may be traced back to a mission of St Lawrence's church in Barnwood, which opened in 1873. The mission was supported by James Witcombe of Wellsprings, and in 1898, he built the first church. This was a corrugated iron structure, with a single plane tree outside, which "did not look very elegant, but we thought that it was the prettiest little church in England on the inside, particularly at Harvest Festival time. Every year Miss HERRON wheeled her gigantic pumpkins and marrows etc in her wheelbarrow to the church, and contributions from everyone was a wonder to behold".

Planning for a more permanent structure began in 1932, and building began the following year. The new church, "designed by Harold Stratton-Davis in a 15th-century style" was consecrated on 31st March 1934. It was built on the former site of Anderson's Garage. The garage had been moved to a more strategic position when a new stretch of the Cheltenham road was built - "the garage was placed on rollers and pushed and pulled up the Old Cheltenham road to a position behind the present BP garage". That should have been a sight worth seeing... unless of course it was a frequent occurrence for buildings to go "walkabout" at the time!

Separate registers of Holy Trinity in the Gloucester Archives begin in 1898, when the first church was erected. The iron church remained in use for a time after the new one was built, as a church hall, but it was subsequently demolished, and a modern surgery now occupies its site.

The civil parish of Wotton St Mary Without was created in 1932, from parts of Barnwood, Churchdown, Down Hatherley and various city parishes, and is centred on Longlevens. Longlevens is a ward within Gloucester, so does not exist as a parish in its own right.

Our photographs include the church's WWI Memorial, when Holy Trinity was still a daughter church of St Lawrence, Barnwood in the parish of Barnwood. Some of the names also appear on Barnwood's War Memorial, as men of the parish, not just as men of the church. The names are also reproduced on the joint WWI and WWII Memorial, also photographed.

There are three stained glass windows in Holy Trinity. The two which are included in our photographs were made from the stained glass windows which belonged to St Luke's Church in the City Centre, demolished in 1933. The third stained glass window is modern, and the remaining windows are plain glass. [Sources: John Williams, the Victoria County History series: A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 4: The City of Gloucester (1988), pp.311-317 (Modern Parish Churches), The London Gazette of 12 April 1932 (pp.2390-2) for a definition of the newly created 'District of Wotton Saint Mary Without', and "My Parish - Wotton St Mary Without", published in Gloucestershire Family History Society Journal, No. 58, Sept 1993, pp.22-23]

The inscriptions on the combined War Memorial read:

With Proud Thanksgiving this Tablet is erected in Memory of the Men of Longlevens who made the Supreme Sacrifice in the Great Wars of 1914 & 1939
1914-1918	1939-1945
S. BEVAN	J.R. BIRCH
W.D. BOULTON	L.BREACH
E.J. DAVIS	W.E. BROOKS
R. DOREY	D.J. BROWN
H. FRANKLIN	T. HARWOOD
A.E. GARDNER	A.R. JONES
J. HARVEY	I.I. JONES
E. HARVEY	G.D. MACHIN
H. HARMER	G. NICHOLLS
W. HAWKINS	M.J. SUMMERS
A. JAMES	A.C. TROTTER
F.K. LAVERTON	F.A. TUCKER
W.F. LLOYD	G. WILLIAMS
T. LLOYD
W.T. MURRAY	"At the Going
S. NICHOLLS	Down of the
J.E. PALMER	Sun and in
H.J. RICKARD	the Morning
E. THOMAS	we will
A.G. WEAVING	Remember Them"
S. WISE

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 is located at OS grid reference SO8561619654. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Parish Church of the Holy Trinity and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Longlevens, 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)

Resources

I have found many websites of use whilst compiling the information for this database. Here are some which deserve mention as being of special interest for Longlevens, Gloucester, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• The Victoria County History series: A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 4: The City of Gloucester (null) (verified 2018-11-06)
• As well as offering the benefits of Membership, the Gloucestershire Family History Society (null) (verified 2018-11-09)
• Notices of Civil Registration of Places of Worship for marriages are published in the London edition of The Gazette. Hint: search for registrations from 1998 by choosing 'Church' notices, and the option 'Registration for solemnising marriage'. (verified 2018-12-11)

The above links were selected and reviewed at the time I prepared the information, but please be aware their content may vary, or disappear entirely. These factors are outside my control.