Holy Trinity Church, Barnstaple Holy Trinity Church, Barnstaple Holy Trinity is an Anglican parish church for Barnstaple in Devon. Dating from 1867 with an earlier tower from 1843-45, the church comes under the Diocese of Exeter and has been a Grade II* listed building since 1981. Holy Trinity is a typical Victorian era church built in 1867 by William White on the site of an earlier church designed in the 1840s by David Mackintosh of Exeter but which necessarily had to be rebuilt as its foundations were unsound. The four-stage tower with set-back buttresses is built in the Somerset style and pre-dates the main
Barnstaple and it was the largest textile centre outside Exeter until about 1600. Its wool trade was further aided by the town's port, from which in 1588 five ships were contributed to the force sent to fight the Spanish Armada. Barnstaple was one of the "privileged ports" of the Spanish Company, (established 1577) whose armorials are visible on two of the mural monuments to 17th century merchants in St Peter's Church, and on the decorated plaster ceiling of the former "Golden Lion Inn", 62 Boutport Street (now a restaurant next to the Royal and Fortescue Hotel). The developing trade with America