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History of Holy Trinity
We hope the following
notes help visitors appreciate the history of our church. A more
complete guide is available if you would like more information (please
contact the church wardens accordingly).
Notes for Visitors
 This
Church is one of the three oldest in Kent, having been founded within a few
years of the coming of St. Augustine in 597. The original building extended
from the present chancel arch to the Tower arch and from the north wall,
much of which is original, the width of the present nave.
It sits on traditionally religious
ground. The large stone outside the front porch is said to be a pagan
alter-stone. A Roman villa also stood near the site. The original church
includes in its walls a high proportion of roman tiles from the villa ruins.
The records of Ely mention that ‘Queen Sexburga,
Abbess of Minster in Sheppey, left her life at the Doors of Mylton Church’ in 680.
<St. Sexbergha, dowager Queen of Kent, was first Abbess of
Minster-in-Sheppey (and now co-patroness of the Abbey Church there), second
Abbess (after her
sister Etheldreda) of Ely. The porch and doors would have stood where the
tower now is, with a small room above it, reached by rope ladder, for the
priest. The door high on the west wall, which now looks out from the ringing
chamber, enabled him to keep an eye on the church.>
 The original dedication is unknown - the name Holy Trinity could not predate
the founding of Trinity Sunday by Pope Gregory IV in 828. In 1052 Earl
Godwin, father of King Harold of Battle of Hastings fame, sacked the Royal
Town of Milton during his revolt against Edward the Confessor and badly
damaged the Church. Upon its
repair the church walls were heightened and a chancel and south transept
added. The present name of the church may well have been given
at the re-dedication of the restored building, probably by Archbishop Lanfranc after the Norman Conquest. The same archbishop made the church the
centre of an extensive Deanery in 1070.
The Porch
The Porch has a fine old chessboard pattern gate <presently removed and
stored inside the church> and an oak kingpost roof,
both original (c.1450). On the right of the Church door is a Consecration
cross (another is on the West door entrance).
The South Aisle
On the right after entering the church is a holy water stoop.
Further east on the same wall is the
entrance to a rood loft, its door partly destroyed by a modern window. High
on the wall is the rood
doorway, with the other end of the Rood Arch opposite. <A rood loft was a
raised platform with a rood (crucifix) in the middle - where the gospel was
read for greater ease of hearing in days before amplifier systems.>
Below the door is a small window (often found in the south wall of a church)
from which a bell was rung at the Sanctus and Consecration so that those working in the fields might pause for prayer at the focal points of the Mass
within.
Further east is a priest’s door providing direct access to the chancel.
The organ was made by Bevington & Sons, one of the leading firms of the
period, in about 1870. Its brilliant tone is reminiscent of an 18th rather
than 19th century instrument. <The organ is now in retirement, due partly
to maintenance costs, being replaced by an electric organ.>
The Norwood Chapel
 The Norwood Chapel was originally
built in the early 1400s as a Chantry chapel for the de Northwode
family <where requiem masses were said for the souls of deceased Norwoods>. Its dedication, if any, is unknown.
It was restored by the Mothers’ Union in 1940 with a steeper pitch to the
roof (the old beam supports may be seen on the wall). The incorrect main
window was put in during the mid 19th century to replace one blown out in a
gale.
The alter rails, once thought to be Queen Anne, have recently been
identified by an expert as Tudor.
The light on the north wall of this
sanctuary is over the aumbry where the sacrament of Holy Communion is
reserved for the Sick.
There is a good Decorated sedilia with Purbeck
marble shafts. The sedilia left arch contains fragments of a brass to
Thomas Ayleff <now unfortunately missing> and his wife Margaret
Ayleff, owners of Coleshall in the early 1500s; in the right arch now hangs
an oak board set with brasses (original site unknown) to Sir John and Lady
Norwood (c.1496) with their coat-of-arms.
On the wall tomb
between the chapel and the main church is the brass of an unknown knight of
the Norwood household (c.1480). The armorial bearings were pilfered in the
18th century so it is impossible to identify him.
 High on the north wall of the chapel is the support which formerly held
the gauntlets and jousting helm of Sir John Norton, High Sheriff of Kent and
brother-in-law of Sir John Norwood. The gauntlets have long since perished
however the Norwood Helm is now in the Armouries of the Tower of London on
extended loan from the
parish. The altar tomb beneath is that of Sir John Norton. (Details of the
Norwood and Norton families are on a plaque on the south wall outside the
sanctuary.)
The Chancel
 
The East window is a
recent addition, being a memorial to a parishioner killed in the South
African War (1899-1901). The face of the knight in armour is said to be that
of the man commemorated and the dog in the lower right section is the man's
pet dog which is said to have followed him everywhere. Its description on the north wall
is worth reading.
There is a piscina in the south wall of the sanctuary.
 The
door outside the Communion rail
leads to a vestry and room above it which was once an anchorite’s chapel and
cell <an anchorite was a priest who lived in the room - the 'cell' -
above>. A licence from Henry III authorising the parish to maintain an
anchorite, dated 1255, is in the library of Merton College, Oxford. The
piscina and mural paintings in the vestry date from his occupation, though
the altar step reflects renewed use of the room as a chapel in the 19th
century. The anchorite would have been walled up into his cell, living in
the upper room then reached by a rope ladder and preaching through the large
window there to people below, on whom he relied for gifts of food on which
to survive. The existing doorway into the church would at that time have
been walled in.
The Jacobean Vicar’s Stall in choir (and possibly the two high-backed chairs
in the Norwood sanctuary) were probably made from the wood of a former rood
screen.
The Nave is much modernised with large Perpendicular style windows. The
small blocked window near the Pulpit held the Easter Sepulchre in which the
Reserved Sacrament was placed between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Perhaps
there was a side altar where the pulpit now stands and the Sepulchre was
within its sanctuary.
   There
is also a Devil’s Door in the north wall. A portion of plaster has
been removed from the wall (opposite the Porch door) to reveal the Roman
brick in herring-bone pattern of the original early 7th century church.
The Tower
 The
Tower is the largest in Kent and third largest in England in girth (25’
square internally at the level of the Ringing Chamber with 4’ thick walls).
It is 78' high - nothing unusual but the highest in the area and an Ordnance
Survey Reference point.
The tower was built between 1310 and
1330. <The porch and south-west section of the church are from about the
same date. The porch door, the chequerboard gate now at the back of the
church and most of the woodwork in the ceiling of both nave and chancel
(apart from a few obviously machine cut beams) belong to this period.>
There are six bells, five of 1682 and one of 1934.
The Font
The 14th century font formerly stood on a dais at the west end of the
Church.
Mural Paintings
 The
fresco of Paul before Agrippa and Bernice above the pulpit on the north wall
is probably one frame of a life of St.
Paul covering the entire wall, of which the others remain to be exposed. One expert
describes it as being among the oldest in England. The mural was painted
about the time King John was signing Magna Carta - the whole wall was
whitewashed to protect the paintings from Cromwellian vandalism.
Over the Porch door is a fresco of St. Christopher; over the Vicar’s Stall
one of a vine; and in the Anchorite’s chapel one of St. Paul. A much faded
fresco of the Crucifixion in the same room is now hidden behind cupboards.
List of Vicars
A list of vicars hangs near the lectern. Prior to those named the parish was
staffed by Austin (Augustinian) canons from Canterbury.
One of the Earliest Fireworks
Accidents?
In the graveyard adjacent to the porch
is the gravestone of Simon Gilker Junior who "was killed by means of a
rocket November 5 1696". <The Gunpowder Plot was in 1605.>
(A copy of this
history and the list of vicars of Milton is available
here on a PDF document which you may find easier to print.)
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