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Holy
Trinity, Diss
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I
like Diss a lot, and parts of this lovely
hill-top town are as fine as anywhere in urban
East Anglia; but parts of it are not, and the
long, straight road that serves the railway
station and takes the traffic through from
Thetford to Yarmouth is one of them. At its
western end it shakes off the warehouses,
factories and other agro-industrial activity,
entering a pleasant suburb that eventually
becomes Roydon. Here on the edge of town is
the Catholic church of the Most Holy Trinity, a
little brick-built post-war structure that is as
plain and simple as the great Anglican parish
church of St Mary on the
hill is grand and beautiful.
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You step
inside to a modern narthex extension, the older body of
the church stretching away to the east. There is no
division between the two. A large west window floods the
narthex with coloured light, an abstract design of the
setting sun by a local retired doctor, the kind of folk
art you only find in non-conformist and Catholic churches
these days. The older east end is quite traditional and
most attractive.
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most East Anglian Catholic churches, Holy Trinity
is much too small for its modern congregation,
and amiable Parish Priest Simon Blakesley has to
split them over three Masses each Sunday. Even
then, it is standing room only, and the plan is
to sell the site and move to a bigger church as
soon as possible. As Father Simon points out,
this is the most humble of all the Diocese of
East Anglia's parish churches, having more the
air of a chapel of ease, and the congregation are
plainly worth something better. A couple of sites
are being looked at, and although these are early
days we can be sure that the new church will be
bigger than this one. I hope they take that
window with them, though. Simon
Knott, June 2005
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