Welcome to Holy Trinity
Serving the community of Norton Juxta Twycross
Holy Trinity church is open Saturdays and Sundays between 10am & 4pm (except during services)
for visitors or private prayer. Usual worship times 3rd Sunday in month 10am.
To arrange access or for general enquiries contact Revd Rick Tett 01530 610235 woodfieldteamvicar@gmail.com
Services:
Services are usually one Sunday per month, with specials at Easter and Christmas.
For service dates/times please check the calendar page of this website.
Regular Sunday congregations are small but occasional informal specials, such as our mid-week evening Celebrating Christmas, are well supported by villagers. Holy Trinity also hosts the Christmas Eve midnight communion service every other year, which is a wonderfully peaceful candlelit service.
Whilst attendance at Sunday services is small, the church and village support each other in different ways. There are occasional coffee mornings which fundraise for the church and allow social outreach within the village community.
Various villagers take turn on the church cleaning and flowers rota. The church also holds well supported church breakfasts and we usually have a stall at the annual Village Fete.
In 2024 and 2026 villagers organised very successful 'A Country Church in Summer' flower weekends.
Village setting:
The small village of Norton Juxta Twycrss sits on the western ridge of Leicestershire, bordering Warwickshire. Although historically housing estate workers from the now demolished Gopsal Hall, it is now a dormitory village.
Norton has a Village Memorial Hall which is used for village and church events. Twycross Zoo also sits within the village boundary (the house was once Norton's Rectory). There are no village school, pub, nor shop and very limited public transport. Norton is in a joint civil parish with Twycross and Orton-on-the-Hill and lies within Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council
Church Building:
This Grade 11* listed medieval church has been at the heart of the village community since early 14th century and possibly sits on the site of an earlier Saxon church.
Nortone village is recorded as having had a priest at the 1086 Domesday survey, when Lady Godiva (of Coventry fame) was the named overlord of the village. As there was a priest, presumably there was also a church.
Major renovations to the church were carried out in 1841, under the supervision of Mr H. I. Stevens, thanks to generous donations from Richard Curzon-Howe (1st Earl Howe) of nearby Gopsal Hall, George Moore, the Moore sisters, Revd. Alfred Curzon (Vicar) and others.
As part of those restoration works: the Chancel floor was lowered; new roofs were built with a new arch-braced hammer-beam roof over the nave and an arch-braced collar roof over the chancel; stained glass was restored by Mr William Warrington of London including the existing figurines; and pitch-pine box pews with a contemporary 3-tier pulpit system were also installed.
Church Barrel Organ:
Norton’s barrel-organ dates from 1819, built by James Butler of London, and probably given by Earl Howe as part of the restoration. The organ has 3 separate barrels with 10 tunes on each. The tunes were recorded 2026 by Dr M Kilbey. A couple of the identified Norton tunes aren’t found on any other surviving barrel organ. For more details on the barrel organ and/or to hear the tunes: https://www.barrel-organs.co.uk/surviving instruments.htm
Repair grants:
Being a medieval church, sitting on a clay hillside, there will always be building issues. The local congregation is responsible for the maintenance of the building, which is a challenge for such a small community, so we are grateful to the various funding bodies who have enabled the work.
In 2022 we completed a large grant-aided project to re-tile one of the roof faces, replace the ceilings and carry out various internal plaster repai
rs. Villagers also gave generously towards repairing the church clock.
Thanks to National Churches Trust & Historic England, we were awarded a grant from the government’s Heritage Stimulus Fund towards the 2022 works. We also thank Benefact Trust, Edward Cadbury Charitable Trust, Garfield Weston Foundation, Helen Jean Cope Charity, Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council Parish Community Initiative Fund, Jack Patston Charitable Trust, Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, LRCF Mercia Park Community Fund, Paget Charitable Trust, Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust and Twycross Parish Council. Thanks to their support, the church will continue to be a place of solace and worship and #HereForCulture. Leicestershire Historic Churches Trust has also gifted various repair grants.
