Holy Trinity Church, Adelaide

Holy Trinity Church, originally Trinity Church, is an Anglican church on North Terrace, in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. Trinity has four services at the North Terrace location each Sunday, nine Sunday services in six church plants and various other meetings throughout the week. The style of these services ranges through traditional Anglican, family and modern youth services.

Trinity is historically significant in that it contains elements of the earliest surviving Anglican church building in South Australia. Of special note is the William IV window that was brought to Adelaide in 1836.

The church was built in three main stages. It was originally planned that the church would be a prefabricated building imported from England; however, when the prefabricated building arrived from England badly damaged, it was decided instead to build a stone church. Governor Hindmarsh laid the foundation stone on 28 January 1838 and the church opened in about August that year, within two years of the settlement of Adelaide (see History of Adelaide). The building quickly became a landmark with its "peaked cap" top tower and the Vulliamy clock. (Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy 1780 - 1854, was the clockmaker to King William IV and Queen Adelaide.)

In 1844 the church was closed for repairs and the clock was removed for safekeeping. The body of the church was rebuilt and re-roofed and the tower lost its peaked cap. It reopened in August 1845. When Bishop Short arrived in 1847, Holy Trinity assumed many of the functions of a cathedral and was - until other congregations (especially Christ Church, North Adelaide) were established - the place of worship for the governors, many of the colony’s prominent families and the military.

In 1878, there was a proposal to rebuild when some money was subscribed, but this did not take place until the congregation decided in the mid-1880s to completely rebuild the church to a design by the prominent architect Edward John Woods, using the mellow sandstone which eventually weathered to match the original limestone. It was around this time that the present name of "Holy Trinity" became current.

The hall and the rectory are also significant features in the precinct. The hall was built in 1887 using a donation from a parishioner. The original rectory was a prefabricated "Manning" building which arrived in better condition than the church. It was replaced by the present building in 1851 and was the home of seven successive incumbents. It is now used as offices.

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