Church Of St Thomas

The Church of St Thomas is a parish church dating from 1877-79, designed by the local architect J S Rawson and built by Coop Bros. of Bolton. It was declared redundant in the late 20th century. The church is constructed of rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings, featuring slate roofs with patterned red ridge tiles, and is built in the Early English style.

The church includes a chancel with an apse, an organ chamber, a vestry, a nave with north and south aisles, and north and south porches. It is characterised by a plinth and chamfered eaves throughout, with coped gables. The chancel features a cusped east window and side windows with plate tracery, all under pointed arches, with a sill band and linked hood mould. A gabled organ chamber is situated to the south, with a hipped porch to the return angle featuring a shouldered door. The two-bay vestry has half-hipped through-eaves dormers, each containing a plain double lancet window. The west gable includes angle buttresses, a short central buttress, a five-light window with a hoodmould, and brackets for a bell. The north aisle has six bays with buttresses and two-light pointed arched windows with plate tracery; the south aisle has five bays, similarly designed. The north and south porches have buttressed pointed arched doorways with multiple chamfering and hood moulds, with boarded doors featuring blind tracery in their heads.

The interior is rendered. The chancel has a polychrome moulded arch without responds and its own hood mould, a single lancet opening to the south, and a boarded vault with a half-dome, moulded ribs on corbels and watt shafts. The east window contains stained glass dating from 1896, and the south east window contains stained glass from around 1900. A wooden memorial reredos with a triptych, dating from around 1907, is also present. A moulded blind arch is on the north side, and a similar arched opening provides access to the organ chamber on the south side. The organ, chancel, and altar rails have been removed. The nave features arcades with polychrome octagonal piers, six bays, enriched moulded arches with hood moulds, and a boarded wagon roof with moulded ribs on watt shafts. The clerestory has wrought iron lamp brackets between each pair of windows, with similar brackets on the west wall. A full-width screen with leaded glazing and diagonal match boarding, and a central opening under a traceried gable, is positioned at the rear, linked to matching screens and doors for the porches. The narrow aisles contain double-chamfered cross-arches. The vestry preserves its original joinery, including segment headed fireplaces in chamfered stone surrounds, and other original fittings.

Original fittings include an octagonal stone font, said to be 14th century in style, with a plain base, a stem with quadruple shafts, and an elaborately traceried bowl with pointed arched pendants. A partly demolished octagonal wooden pulpit and steps sit on an octagonal stone stem. Panelled benches and choir stalls with blind tracery are also present. Memorials include a war memorial tablet, a Roll of Honour in wooden case (1919), and a bronze and marble memorial tablet (1897).