THE HOLY TRINITY CHURCH, HULL.
There is an error in the heading of one of the architectural notes appended to the Proceedings of the Arch. Inst. held at York in 1846. From the description which is given (p. 38.), it is plain that the above church is the one to which the note refers; not that of St. Mary's, which is the title of the article.
The material of the whole church is not, also, "brick with stone dressings," as the note informs us, only the chancel, south porch, and south transept; all the rest is of stone, and in a very sad state of repair. A few years ago, the south transept was restored; but the ornamental part was worked in such bad stone, that the crockets of the pinnacles have already begun to moulder away. It is a curious fact, that Bishop Lyttleton, who visited Hull in 1756 for the express purpose of "examining the walls of the town, and the materials of which the Holy Trinity Church is constructed," should have stated in the Archæologia (vol. i. p. 146.) that there did not appear to be "a single brick in or about the whole fabric, except a few in the south porch, placed there of late years."
There is a matter of great archæological interest connected with the part of the church which is built of brick; for, as there is reason to believe that the chancel was raised in the year 1285, there is good foundation for the supposition, that Hull was "the first town to restore in this country the useful art of brickmaking" (Frost's Hull, p. 138.). The walls of the town, which were erected by royal licence in 1322, and still standing with their gates and towers in the time of Leland and Camden, are described by them as being of brick. Leland also says (Itin., edit. Hearne, fol. 53.) that the greater part of the "houses of the town at that tyme (Richard II.) was made al of brike."
R. W. Elliot.
Clifton.