Holy Trinity Church, commonly known as Horwich Parish Church, is a Grade II listed building in Church Street, Horwich, Greater Manchester, England. It is an active Church of England parish church in the Deanery of Bolton, the Archdeaconry of Bolton, and the Diocese of Manchester.

Holy Trinity Church is one of four churches which form the united Benefice of Horwich and Rivington; the other three are St Catherine's Church and St Elizabeth's Church in Horwich, and Rivington Parish Church.

History

There have been three chapels or churches on the site of Holy Trinity Church. It is not known when the first chapel was built, but it existed before the English Reformation when it was a chapel of ease to the parish church of St Mary the Virgin's Church, Deane.

In 1565, the "commissioners for removing superstitious ornaments" took various items they considered idolatrous from the chapel. The earliest gravestone in the churchyard has the initials and date M.H. 1648, however, the church registers only commenced in 1660. After the Glorious Revolution in 1688, the chapel was used by Nonconformists, but in 1716 the Bishop of Chester recovered the chapel for the established church.

As the town expanded during the Industrial Revolution and the population increased, the old chapel was replaced by a larger building in 1782. Almost fifty years later, the second chapel was replaced by the present church which was designed by Francis Octavius Bedford and consecrated in 1831.It is a Waterloo or Commissioners' Church, partly paid for by money from the parliament of the United Kingdom raised by the Church Building Act 1818, and said to be a celebration of Britain's victory in the Battle of Waterloo. The Commissioners paid £5,621 (equivalent to £640,000 in 2023), the remainder was provided by the Ridgway family, owners of Wallsuches Bleach Works.[9] Horwich became a parish on 29 December 1853 and the chapel-of-ease became the parish church.

The chancel, designed by Bolton architect Richard Knill Freeman, was added to the east end of the church in 1903 in memory of the Reverend Henry Septimus Pigot, vicar for 48 years. [Wiki]