Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Thomas

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Thomas

This Gothic Revival church was built between 1903 and 1905 by the architects Kelly & Dickie. The building is constructed of rock-faced local stone with ashlar dressings and has Welsh slate roofs.

The church is oriented east to west and comprises a nave and transepts with a two-span roof, together with a sanctuary formed as a three-sided apse. It stands on the east side of a lane leading from the main road through Willington, with a large churchyard to its north.

The east end features a three-sided apse with paired blind lancets and a pyramidal roof. The east gable rises above with a quatrefoil motif at the apex and a cross finial to the gable head. A single-storey vestry with a pitched roof has been added to the rear of the south transept. The three-bay nave and transepts have round-headed windows with Gothic tracery and hood moulds, alternating with stepped buttresses. A continuous sill band and chamfered plinth run along the walls. The central bay of the north wall is partly infilled by a stone lean-to structure with a quatrefoil motif and stone slate roof, representing the remains of an unbuilt baptistery. Attached to the southwest corner of the south transept is a slender four-stage turret with a slated pyramidal roof; each stage is pierced by a narrow slit opening, with the fourth stage featuring a louvered lancet beneath a hood mould. The west end has an off-centre pointed arched entrance of two orders with a tympanum carved with a cinquefoil motif. Three stepped windows above have pointed-arch heads with tracery matching the transept windows. A louvered quatrefoil rises to the apex with a cross finial to the gable head. All windows contain original leaded glass.

Inside, plasterwork unifies the interior, including a continuous band serving as both hood mould to doorways and arched openings and sill band to windows. All window and door openings feature moulded plasterwork chamfers and stops. The sanctuary apse has a timber-boarded semi-dome defined by a plaster pointed arch. Within are three pointed-arch recesses, each housing a pair of paintings on canvas by Louis Beyaert (one in the upper arch, one in the lower) depicting Types and Ante-types: the Feeding of the Five Thousand paired with Moses in the Desert and Israelites collecting manna; the Crucifixion of Jesus paired with Abraham prevented from killing Isaac; and the Wedding at Cana paired with Abraham meeting Melchizadek. The paintings are signed by the artist and dated 1912. To either side of the apse is a tall pointed-arch recess, with the right one flanked by a pair of shoulder-arched entrances providing access to the vestry behind. The original free-standing pulpit remains, as do two pieces of the cut-down original Gothic altar rail. Double transepts flank the sanctuary, defined by a short timber arcade with timber openwork to the spandrels supported on a single slender cast-iron fluted column, emphasising their open nature. The north transept houses a Harrison & Harrison organ built in 1904. A door in the southwest corner of the south transept provides access to an enclosed ladder stair leading to the turret. The nave has a high keeled wooden roof divided into compartments by timber ribs, with compartments lined with pitch pine boards. The intended but unbuilt baptistery site is visible in the northwest corner as a pointed-arch recess. The benches are Belgian-made originals with tip-up kneeling boards and sides decorated with quatrefoils and trefoils. Beneath the triple west windows is a single-storey flat-roofed narthex from the mid-20th century, created by extending the west entrance into the nave.