A strange picture for an article on a medieval church but this church is where I bought the book ‘Bells and Bikes’. Holy Trinity Goodramgate’s environment and a charity donation to Marie Curie encouraged me to part with some cash. I was not disappointed on either front.
As can be seen charity is nothing new at Holy Trinity. This wall mounted board records 17th century donations for bread to the poor.
The church is a marvel from 12th – 15th century worship that still has 3 services each year. It is now in the care of the historic Churches Conservation Trust.
‘The floors and arcades are charmingly uneven. Light filters through the windows, illuminating honey-coloured stone. The east window especially has marvellous stained glass that was donated in the early 1470s by the Reverend John Walker, rector of the church. On sunny days, transient gems of coloured light are scattered on the walls, and various medieval faces stare out from the windows.
The building dates chiefly from the fifteenth century, but has features from its foundation in the twelfth century right up to the nineteenth century. The box pews, unique in York, are exceptionally fine, and an interesting collection of monuments and memorials paint a picture of life in this busy city throughout the ages’.
‘The church is of interest for the evidence it retains of a complicated, piecemeal development, but it is chiefly remarkable as the best surviving example, little altered, of pre-Tractarian arrangements to provide an auditory setting for Anglican worship with three liturgical centres contrived within a mediaeval church. It has suffered badly from decay but has been restored without loss of character. Among the fittings, the mediaeval glass and the surviving woodwork of the 18th-century ordering or reordering are of particular interest.’ British History online
Church & Charity
More importantly linking the church to the book, Holy Trinity Goodramgate has a large bell suspended near the entrance that children take delight in banging with a tethered clapper. The author is a keen campanologist, native Yorkshire man and cycling obsessive. Rod Ismay is also endorsed by the post office as a superhero for Children in Need in recognition of his many cycling related fund raising activities.
Rod is quite keen on bell-ringing, charity fund raising and cycling so the book provided an opportunity to link all three. ‘ Why not get all the bells ringing along the Tour route, why not organise countless events, countless meetings, why not drag in churches far and wide, why not involve your employer, your friends, your family….’ as the amazon blurb has it.
One of several other historic plaques on the church wall.
Friends Of Holy Trinity Goodramgate York registered charity no. 1096369 over the last five years has spent more than three times its annual income to finance ways of making visits to holy trinity church more pleasurable. Casting bread on waters perhaps.
See also Charity Chit Chat
It seems a shame the Bell Ringers and York Minster politicos can’t demonstrate a more effective charitable spirit and resolve the dispute that is currently keeping the Minster bells silent.