Church Of St Thomas The Apostle

Church of St Thomas the Apostle, Bolton

Parish church. Built in 1875 to designs by architects Paley and Austin. Constructed in brick with minimal stone dressings and a green slate roof.

The plan consists of a nave with clerestory and two aisles, a storey vestry and bellcote forming a south transept, and a chancel.

The exterior features a symmetrical west front with stepped wide lancet windows flanked by two rose windows, with two lower lancet windows below on each side of a central buttress. Lean-to aisles of 8 bays have coped gabled north and south porches. Plain stone bands and hoodmoulds dress the wide foiled lancet windows. A 14-light clerestory is articulated by a continuous hoodmould with arcading. The south transept contains vestries with two lancet windows and a narrow doorway, topped by a rose window above. A louvred bellcote forms a dormer with pyramidal roof. A two-storey vestry occupies the east angle with the chancel and features stepped lancets with flanking rose windows at its east end, set within a full-height stone arch with blind brick arcading below.

The interior displays a nave arcade of 5 bays with cylindrical shafts carrying stiff leaf capitals and stepped pointed brick arches with stone hoodmoulds. A stone string course and continuous hoodmould articulate the moulded pointed brick arches of the clerestory, which has a moulded cornice above. The nave roof is a ribbed boarded wagon roof with chamfered tie beams and kingposts. The lean-to aisles have curved principals sprung from wall posts. The chancel arch features clustered shafts with additional responds carried on corbels, stiff leaf capitals, and a stepped brick arch.

A rectangular stone pulpit sits at the chancel arch, corbelled out from the base with polished marble corner shafts and a simple acanthus frieze. Plain brick surfaces throughout are relieved by bands of herringbone work, with wood panelling to the lower walls of the sanctuary and recessed brick panels with gilded emblems at the east end. The sanctuary has encaustic tiles. Stepped brick arches lead to an organ chamber and lady chapel on the north and south of the chancel respectively, with the south arch lower and featuring two rose windows above it. An open-work timber screen separates the lady chapel from the chancel. A brick segmentally arched piscina and sedilia are present.

The reredos was added in 1893 by John Carlisle of Kirby Lonsdale. It is constructed of wood in renaissance style with linen-fold lower panels, arcaded panelling above featuring stylised flower motifs in relief, and figures of the apostles beneath shell canopies forming an upper row of panelling. The central panel contains a low relief of the Last Supper flanked by saints, with an openwork cornice above.

Choir furniture dates from around 1911. The altar dates from around 1960, replacing an earlier one damaged by fire. The lady chapel was fitted as a war memorial and opened in 1922, with reredos and wall panelling incorporating a memorial. The font at the west end of the nave dates from around 1950 and is a simple cylindrical basin with low-relief scallop-moulding below the rim.

As originally designed, the church had plain windows with simple stained margin lights; many of these remain. Several stained glass windows were subsequently added, including the east window of 1907 possibly by Holland, a series in the north and south aisles and lady chapel by Shrigley and Hunt dating from around 1920, and the west windows which form a pair, one dated 1919.