The Catholic Revival

1858 - End of 20th century

The Oxford Movement

From 1858, under the incumbency of Fr William Skipsey-Saunders, Holy Trinity increasingly fell under the influence of the Oxford Movement - an informal grouping of academics and other interested parties, both ordained and lay -  who sought to rediscover the Catholic heritage of the Church of England. Significant reordering and rebuilding of the church took place, reflecting this renewed emphasis on ritual and ceremony. This coincided with Holy Trinity being raised to parish church status, after 164 years.

In 1867 the church was re-pewed, a new altar was inserted and chancel formed, with Thomas Hellyer as architect. It was at this point that the Handel Organ was moved to its present position in the west gallery. In 1887 a more substantial remodelling took place, both inside and out, by architect Sir Arthur Blomfield, to mark Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. The whole exterior, which had previously been stuccoed, was refaced in red brick, the windows were re-formed, and a bellcote was added over the east gable. Internally, Blomfield originally intended to redesign the church in his preferred neo-Gothic style, but its classical colonnades made this impossible. Instead, he added an iron screen across the west end and installed a new high altar (orientated for eastward celebration) with ornate reredos, along with other 'High Church' elements, such as statues of various saints.

Holy Trinity has thus ended up with an unusual fusion of architectural styles – a Victorian façade, but with a classical interior, ordered for Anglo-Catholic worship.

Nikolaus Pevsner said, of Blomfield's 1887 rebuild:

"He turned the old plain building with its low-pitched nave, tall, steep-pitched aisles, and apsidal chancel into a rather crude and simplified version of a Lombard basilica."

— Nikolaus B. L. Pevsner and David W. Lloyd, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (1967)

In 1889, Blomfield added the striking campanile (free-standing bell tower) to the North West of the church. This tower has been an iconic feature of the Gosport skyline ever since and can be seen from Portsmouth Harbour - a navigational landmark for generations of naval captains.

Holy Trinity (circa 1925) showing the iron screen in its East position as installed by Blomfield. It was relocated to the West door in 1965, where it remains today.

Deepening Anglo-Catholicism

The church's Anglo-Catholicism was further developed under the ministry of Fr Henry Woolsey (1912–1926) who had previously been, for 17 years, a master at Hurstpierpoint College, a school of the Woodard Corporation - a group of schools founded to inculcate Catholic Anglican belief and practice in the Victorian middle classes. Although Holy Trinity had had high church leanings for 50 years by this point and celebrated weekly Communion, Matins had remained the main Sunday service. Woolsey replaced this with a Sung Mass and instituted a structure of daily Matins, Mass, and Evensong, as well as popularising the practice of Confession. The use of incense was begun on Christmas Day 1913 and has never ceased. Woolsey also founded and edited a monthly parish magazine as a means of spreading Anglo-Catholic teaching throughout the parish. His wish to introduce the reserved sacrament – a highly controversial act in late Victorian Anglicanism – was not realised until after his death.

Woolsey was succeeded by a line of similarly-devoted priests who faithfully served the parish, often for unusually long stints. The final significant reordering took place in the early twenty-first century when Fr Ian Booth installed a fourth altar (in addition to the high altar and those in the Jesus and Lady chapels) in the centre of the nave with the seating rearranged as a circle around it. From then on Mass has been routinely celebrated ‘in the round’.

Holy Trinity has always, however, stood in the moderate strand of the Anglo-Catholic movement: notwithstanding the use of external elements such as vestments, bells, and lights in worship, the liturgy itself remains strictly in accordance with the canonical norms of the Church of England. Although between 1993 and 2014 the parish invoked both resolutions against accepting the ordination of women, the church has never been affiliated to the traditionalist Society of the Holy Cross or Forward in Faith, nor to the liberal Society of Catholic Priests or Affirming Catholicism. As of 2020, Holy Trinity has accepted the ministry of women.