Trinity

Trinity was a major fishing and trading port from the sixteenth century, with merchants from England and Jersey working the cod, and its decline left the built fabric intact: saltbox houses, a mercantile premises, a courthouse and churches, all restored rather than replaced, in a harbour of three arms. The New Founde Lande Trinity Pageant is the local invention: a walking theatre performance in which the audience moves through the village and the actors perform in the lanes and gardens, using the buildings as the set. Rising Tide Theatre runs a full summer season. The Skerwink Trail is a few kilometres away.

History

Fishing ships used the harbour from the 16th century, and the Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte-Real is said to have named it on Trinity Sunday in 1501; West Country fishermen came each summer from the 1570s, and in 1615 Sir Richard Whitbourne held here the first court of Admiralty, the first court of justice in North America. Poole merchants settled it in the 18th century, and by the late 1700s its firms ran 35 ocean-going ships and exported 100,000 quintals of dried cod; in 1798 John Clinch, a friend of Edward Jenner, introduced the smallpox vaccine to the New World here, and St. Paul's Church was consecrated in 1827 (Wikipedia, Trinity, Newfoundland and Labrador).

What to look for

• The saltbox village - restored eighteenth and nineteenth-century buildings.
• The walking pageant - a play performed through the streets with a moving audience.
• The mercantile premises - restored trading buildings from the cod era.
• The three-armed harbour - the shelter that made the port.

When to go

June to September for the theatre season and open museums; the village largely closes from October to May. Pageant and play tickets sell out and need booking.

What to expect

Almost everything closes outside summer. Accommodation is limited and books ahead. The pageant walks outdoors and runs in whatever weather arrives.

Nearby

Skerwink Trail lies close; Bonavista is north.

Key facts