An exhibition that opened over the weekend in celebration of a church’s 400-year anniversary weaves together Bermuda’s history with that of Holy Trinity Church in Hamilton Parish.

Canon John Stow, the Rector of Holy Trinity, welcomed close to 100 to the Bermuda Society of Arts Gallery in the Hamilton City Hall on Saturday morning.

“We have been as meticulous as can be with our history, particularly looking at our most recent years,” said Canon Stow as visitors looked through the paintings, photographs and historical timelines on the walls of the Edinburgh Gallery for the show, entitled T400EX.

The island’s story is bound up with that of the church overlooking Harrington Sound — not least in its graveyard.

“It may sound morose, but it’s a precious part of our legacy,” Canon Stow said, pointing out that prominent members of the community recently interred there include the former minister Arthur Hodgson, his activist and author sister, Eva Hodgson, and the animator Arthur Rankin Jr.

The exhibition opened with the Right Reverend Nicholas Dill, Anglican Bishop of Bermuda, reading correspondence in the role of Bishop John Inglis from the 19th century — the first bishop to visit the island from the Church of England.

Bishop Inglis, from Canada, called on Bermuda three times, and one of his first acts on the island was to consecrate its churches, including Holy Trinity.

Commemorating 400 years since the founding of the church in 1623 was an idea that predated the Covid-19 pandemic, Canon Stow said, with artist Vaughan Evans, the curator of the show, hitting on the notion of an exhibition.

Mr Evans told The Royal Gazette: “I’ve been going to the church quite a while — it’s helped me through various crises, and in that time I ended up on the vestry.”

Compiling the exhibition over the past few years was “a marvellous experience”, he said.

“One of the main things I had to do was a lot of reading — and many authors have guided us as to what has happened.”

He added: “I had no idea there were so many shipyards in Hamilton Parish.”

The story of Holy Trinity Church also hews to Bermuda’s colonial and slaveholding history, Mr Evans said: 1623 coincides with “Bermuda’s first piece of legislation against Blacks”.

As exhibited, the Bermuda Assembly passed an Act that year marking legal restrictions based on skin colour, with the status of enslaved people one of lifelong servitude.

“We all share a common history, and this is it,” Mr Evans said. “Good and bad, Black and White. The more we understand our history, the more we understand each other.”

• T400EX will run until April 25 on Mondays to Fridays from 10am to 4pm and on Saturdays from 10am to 2pm