Welcome to Holy Trinity Church

The Parish of North Wearside needs your help as we ‘gather, together to grow’. Holy Trinity, Southwick seeks to be a welcoming place where relationships can be developed and community connections celebrated. We are ideally placed to be a focal point and safe haven, pointing to and facilitating hope and transformation in our midst; however, our iconic and much loved building is in need of some updates and improvements. These will benefit all who use and visit the building, increasing our capacity to be a church and community resource for people of all ages, including the most vulnerable.

Holy Trinity, Southwick

Holy Trinity, Southwick is the oldest church in The Parish of North Wearside, Sunderland. The Parish of North Wearside is a Church of England Parish that sits north of the river Wear and spans from the Stadium of Light across to the A19. We have two Church buildings; Holy Trinity, Southwick, and St Cuthbert’s, Redhouse, plus a community project in St Bede’s on Town End Farm.

Holy Trinity was built in 1842-1845 to the designs of the Architect and Clerk Of Works to Durham Cathedral George L Jackson. It is a Grade II listed building situated on an area of elevated ground overlooking the River Wear to the south, bounded by Northern Way to the west, Church Bank to the south and the former rectory to the north. It is an urban site on the western fringe of Southwick Green.

We are a growing parish with a love of our community and a desire to see those in it thrive. We are an urban parish with a population around 36500, across a number of estates, ranked 391 on the Church of England deprivation statistics.

We seek to be an evolving authentic expression of Church, visible and valued in the local community; accessible to all, led by locally grown and nurtured leaders where we can hold our heritage and tradition alongside contemporary practices and ideas.

We want to be a church that is known to be welcoming and inclusive, where all can grow in confidence, faith and aspirations. We have a particular focus and desire to see this among young people, the socially isolated and elderly and those disadvantaged in some way.

<span style="font-size: 1rem;">The church is used regularly by a range of community groups, including an after school church, toddler group and a craft group. We also host an outreach community meal ‘Winter Warmer’ in the colder months. Winter Warmer draws people from across the parish and combats social isolation while teaching about healthy eating, developing relationships and building community.</span>