Holy_Trinity,_Rotherhithe_Street,_Rotherhithe_(geograph_2276159)

Holy Trinity Church is a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

parish church in

Rotherhithe Rotherhithe () is a district of south-east London, England, and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse on the north bank, as well as the Isle of D ...

, south east

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, within the diocese of Southwark.

History

Holy Trinity, Rotherhithe Street, Rotherhithe - East end (geograph 2276156)

The original church on the site was built between 1837 and 1838, as the expansion of the

Surrey Commercial Docks The Surrey Commercial Docks were a large group of docks in Rotherhithe, South East London, located on the south bank (the Surrey side) of the River Thames. The docks operated in one form or another from 1696 to 1969. Most were subsequently fi ...

drove a growth of population that exhausted the capacity of the original parish of St Mary's Church, Rotherhithe. The building was designed in a

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style by

Sampson Kempthorne Sampson Kempthorne (1809–1873) was an English architect who specialised in the design of workhouses, before his emigration to New Zealand. Life He was the son of Rev. John Kempthorne. He began practising in Carlton Chambers on Regent Street ...

, better known as a designer of

workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse' ...

s: The churchyard was closed to burials in 1858, and was converted by the

Metropolitan Public Gardens Association The Metropolitan Public Gardens Association (also known as the MPGA) is a charity in London for the purposes of the preservation of public parks and gardens, established in 1882. It facilitated the creation of new public open spaces, including f ...

into a small public garden in 1885. The original church building was destroyed by incendiary bombs during an air raid on 7 September 1940, making it the first British Church to be destroyed in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. The bombed church had an organ by

Henry Bevington Henry Bevington (26 July 1777''England & Wales, Quaker Birth, Marriage, and Death Registers, 1578-1837'' – 8 November 1850)''London, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-2003'' was a prolific English organ builder, active in Lon ...

. The Vicar throughout the War was the Rev Joseph Thrift. On the night of the bombing, Thrift escaped with just the clothes on his back. He made sure that all around were safely away, before making his way from the burning remains of the church by rowing-boat to Stepney, bombs falling around him as he went. After the bombing, Thrift advertised in the ''Church Times'': "Holy Trinity, Rotherhithe. Church bombed and everything destroyed. Can you supply one of our immediate needs?" The adjacent school buildings (already condemned in 1939) survived the War, were used for services until the completion of the present church in 1959, and remain in use as the Church Hall. The WWI war memorial also survived the bombing, and is now Grade II listed. The new church building was constructed to a 1957 design by Thomas Ford, and features a distinctive mural of the

crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagi ...

and

resurrection of Jesus The resurrection of Jesus ( grc-x-biblical, ἀνάστασις τοῦ Ἰησοῦ) is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus on the third day after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring – his exalted life as Christ and Lo ...

by the Jewish-born German artist

Hans Feibusch Hans Nathan FeibuschFeibusch, Hans Nathan< ...

Vicars

*1836-51 William P H Hutchinson. Hutchinson was subsequently

Prebendary A prebendary is a member of the Roman Catholic or Anglican clergy, a form of canon with a role in the administration of a cathedral or collegiate church. When attending services, prebendaries sit in particular seats, usually at the back of th ...

of Curborough in

Lichfield Cathedral Lichfield Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, one of only three cathedrals in the United Kingdom with three spires (together with Truro Cathedral and St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh), and the only medie ...

. *1851-59 John Robert Turing. Turing was the grandfather of the mathematician

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical ...

. *1859-88 James Wilson. *1888-1901 Henry Horne Selby-Hele. Selby-Hele and Sweeting exchanged benefices in 1901. *1901-05 Walter Debenham Sweeting. Sweeting wrote the volumes on Peterborough (1898) and Ely (1901) in

Bell A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...

's Cathedral Series. *1905-14 Harold Robert Parnell Tringham *1914-21 William Houghton Hacksley *1921-58 Joseph Thrift *1958-68 Oswald H D Batty *1968-84 Frank Carter *1985-96 Peter Maurice. Maurice was

Bishop of Taunton The Bishop of Taunton is an episcopal title used by a suffragan bishop of the Church of England Diocese of Bath and Wells, in the Province of Canterbury, England. The title was first created under the Suffragan Bishops Act 1534 and takes its na ...

, 2006–15. *1997–present Andrew Doyle

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Holy Trinity Church, Rotherhithe Churches completed in 1957 Rebuilt churches in the United Kingdom 20th-century Church of England church buildings

Rotherhithe Churches bombed by the Luftwaffe in London