Church Of St Thomas Of Canterbury

The Church of St Thomas of Canterbury is a parish church built between 1869 and 1872. It was designed by Sir George G Scott, with the nave completed later by JO Scott. The church is constructed of tooled, squared snecked red sandstone, with graded grey-green slate roofs, and is in an early 13th-century style.

The plan includes a nave and south and north aisles, each with five bays and separate roofs. There is also a two-bay chancel with a north chapel, and a south-east tower, built to two of the intended three stages.

The exterior has a tall plinth, angle and bay buttresses, and shafted lancet windows with block capitals, topped by a corbel table. The west front features seven stone steps leading to oak double doors with ornate hinges. Above the doors are two blank arches on either side, and two lancets, with a central and flanking blank arch above. A circular window featuring Star of David tracery is set within the gable. The gable of each aisle has a pair of lancets, with a sexfoil-lobed round window above, and a cross-in-circle finial on each. The south aisle features a pair of lancets in each bay. The tower includes a square turret at the south-west corner, topped by a diagonally-set timber-framed shelter with a belled pyramidal roof of copper. Other external features include a priest’s door, lancets, paired-lancet bell openings, a simple parapet, an ornate rainwater head and pipe, an east window of three separated lancets, a quatrefoil gable window, and two lancets and an almond-shaped gable window to the north chapel.

Inside, the nave has a tiled floor. The piers are of quatrefoil section with stiff-leaf capitals, and arched trusses span the nave and aisles. The chancel arch rests on corbelled responds and is accompanied by an encaustic tile floor. A window from 1885 by Kempe is located in the west wall. Other interior features include a rectangular font on four colonnettes, a pedestal pulpit with polished colonnettes, carved choir stalls, a reredos from 1909 by CE Deacon featuring statues of Saints Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel, and a reredos from 1913 by CE Deacon in the north-east chapel. The church has no clerestory.