City of Culture date for church renaming

On a visit to Holy Trinity Church, which is in the throes of a £4.5m transformation, Archbishop John Sentamu announced it would become Hull Minster.

The service will be held on May 13, when the city is thronging with people in next year’s City of Culture celebrations.

Today the great West Doors of Holy Trinity were flung open for the first time since work began on Trinity Square outside.

Gone is the huge poplar tree outside, the cracked stone grave slabs and the Victorian church wall, revealing the church’s west facade in all its Gothic glory. More than 500 sets of remains were dug up during excavations.

In just a few weeks time, work should be completed with the area transformed into an open piazza, with eight mirror pools reflecting the church, and modern seating.

The second phase of the development project will see the nave remodelled and pews removed to form a space for banquets, concerts and cultural events.

Archbishop Sentamu stressed that being a Minster was all about being welcoming.

The Archbishop said the work had made the church and its surrounds “a showpiece for the rest of England”: “I am very grateful to the engineers doing a superb piece of work. It makes me feel so proud.

“There used to be barriers, a big wall, a huge tree. You couldn’t see the building. The fact it has been opened up and they can have a proper kitchen in there says to the people of Hull: “It belongs to you.

“It is not just a Church of England church. It is a Minster for the whole of Hull.”

Today’s service came exactly two years to the day since the Archbishop announced he would bestow the title on the church and urged people to dig deep to help fund the £4.5m transformation.

They have now raised over £3m and are “very close” to raising all the money needed for the second phase.

The Archbishop told a congregation gathered in the church for a short service that a Minster was all about being welcome: “Hull Trinity today is kicking out the word ‘Private’, it’s kicking out ‘Keep Out’, and is saying to everybody: ‘Welcome, you have access to all areas.”

After a short tour the Archbishop and Bishop of Hull Alison White laid two of the paving stones in the new square outside.

Bishop Alison said the announcement was “perfect timing” and advised people to “come and see, come and find out, because a Minster is made for sharing.”

She added: “I think it is long overdue, but I think it is absolutely the right moment for it to happen.

“Everybody benefits - this isn’t just about the church, it is really about the city.”

The honorific title is a gift the Archbishop can bestow on major churches of regional significance.

There are a number of Minsters in the region - most famously York Minster.

More recently St James in Grimsby became Grimsby Minster in 2010, followed by Leeds Parish Church which was renamed in 2012.

Towards the end of the 6th century, Pope Gregory sent Christian missionaries to convert Saxon England. They built churches as centres for worship and bases from where they would go to preach.

Such a centre was known as a monasterium.

The word entered the Saxon language as mynster.