The gate, situated at the east side of the churchyard in Rue du Presbytère, is where the congregation gathers at 11 am on Remembrance Sunday to observe the national silence.
Antony Gibb Historic Buildings Consultants are handling the application. Mr Gibb says that in addition to replacing a rotten roof timber, the church is also applying to relay granite cobbles and the roadside kerb to improve disabled access.
‘Since the level of the main road was raised when it was resurfaced a puddle forms at the entrance to the gate.
‘We want to remove the granite setts [paving blocks] to raise the level to that of the road,’ he said.
‘As there are steps at the other entrance to the church, the lych gate provides disabled access, and as it is also where people get dropped off by car, we want to make it level.’
A lych gate is a covered gateway at the entrance to a churchyard which used to play a key part in burials in the days before mortuaries and when most people died at home. The term ‘lych’ evolved from the Old English word for corpse.
The gates date from the Middle Ages, when people were buried wrapped in a shroud and not in a coffin. The body was taken to the lych gate and placed on a bier – a stand for a body or coffin – where it remained, often guarded against body snatchers, until the funeral service, usually held a day or two later.
The lych gate kept the rain off, and often had seats for the vigil watchers. At the funeral, the priest conducted the first part of the service under the shelter of the lych gate. Lych gates are an ancient feature of English churches but far less common in Jersey.
The one at Trinity Church is a modern addition, having been built in the 1950s when the church underwent a major interior refurbishment to relocate the organ and choir stalls to the west end of the building.
