A Church for a Community

In the eighteenth century Brompton was a leafy suburb of London. There were occasional cottages and inns between the walled gardens and a few large houses set in their own grounds.

At that time the Kensington parish was a very large one. It extended from Hammersmith to Chelsea and the only church was St Mary Abbots in the high street. Early in the nineteenth century there was a wave of new building. Terraces of substantial houses were built and squares surrounding gardens. It was now called New Brompton to distinguish it from Old Brompton further west and it became a residentially desirable district.

Holy Trinity Brompton

Parliament had given funds for the building of new churches to meet the needs of the growing population. In 1822 the Kensington Vestry decided to seek the aid of the fund to provide a new church. There was much argument as to which end of the parish should be favoured, but Brompton was chosen. Later an increase in the funds voted by Parliament made it possible also to erect a 'chapel' in the western part of the parish, which became St Barnabas, Addison Road. Holy Trinity was given a large parish running as far west as Earls Court and Stamford Bridge.

The cost of buying the site and building the church came to nearly £10,734, of which the Commissioners for Building New Churches contributed £7,407 and Kensington parish provided the balance. The architect whose plan was chosen was Thomas Leverton Donaldson and building started in 1826.

The building was very plain, in a style known as 'Commissioners' Gothic'. It consisted of a five-bay clerestoried nave with two aisles, and a small projecting sanctuary flanked by vestries. It ended where the chancel now begins. There was the west tower with lobbies on either side containing stairs to the galleries.

Outside the church looked very different from today. The main entrance was through a porch in the centre of the south side, with a smaller entrance towards the east which led into the vestry. The windows were plain lancets without any tracery or significant moulding. The east end had a group of three of these windows.

Inside, the building was not quite so plain. The most individual feature was the open-timber nave roof, panelled with ribs which rested on corbels. It was pitched much lower than the present roof and has not survived. What have survived from Donaldson's interior are the side-aisle roofs resting on corbels (projecting supports), which can be seen in the gallery. Also still with us are the three galleries (with altered fronts) and the arches to the tower, chancel and nave arcades.

The west gallery originally included seats for the choir and an organ in the tower arch. The font was at the west end of the centre aisle, closely surrounded by high pews. The pulpit and desks were at the front of the nave. The chancel was very short, raised by only one step. The altar table had no reredos; the customary inscriptions were on the east wall.

The church was consecrated on 6 June 1829. There were seats for 1,505 people, of which 899 were rented and 606 free.

St Paul, Onslow Square

In 1861 the parish of St Paul, Onslow Square was created out of the large parish of Holy Trinity Brompton and St Paul’s Church was opened with a service on Christmas Eve in 1860.

In the 1970s, the incumbency of Raymond Turvey gave rise to a considerable student congregation which resulted in the decision to combine the parish of St Paul - whose church building was in need of considerable renovation – with that of neighbouring Holy Trinity Brompton, which had a structurally sound church but a small congregation. The parish became known as ‘Holy Trinity Brompton with St Paul, Onslow Square’. While the congregation at Holy Trinity continued to flourish and grow, St Paul’s Church was declared redundant in 1978. In 1988 the redundancy notice was revoked and St Paul’s reopened as a Chapel of Ease.

St Paul’s Church was built as an integral part of the development of Onslow Square by the leading Victorian developer, Sir Charles James Freake. The church was built in 1859-60 to the designs of James Edmeston and Freake’s office and a church hall was constructed to the south of the church in 1876 and extended in 1893. The original chancel was lengthened to its current dimensions and given its fine west window by William Wallace in 1888-9 and at the same time additional gallery staircases were created north and south of the chancel. In 1963 utilitarian alterations were made to the link wing and over the vestry.

A modernist scheme encompassing the Vicarage and a curate’s flat in a three-storey block beside the east end of the church and yet another addition to the Church Hall, Paul’s Place by Eric Brady of Maidment & Brady was constructed in 1968-70. St Paul’s Church was added to the Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest in Grade II in 1974.

Around the buildings as you see it today there flourishes a growing community of people who are drawn together by a common understanding of God and a common desire to grow. We welcome new members!

Behind the bricks and mortar, we hope you will be able to stay with us long enough to discover and experience for yourself something of these foundational beliefs which make Holy Trinity Brompton with St Paul, Onslow Square, or HTB, what it is today.

Contact details
email reception@htb.org.uk