Church of St Thomas

The Church of St Thomas is an Anglican church built in 1868, with minor alterations in the 20th century. Designed by J. Medland Taylor, it is constructed from random polygonal sandstone with red brick dressings and a banded slate roof.

The church has a two-cell plan, comprising a nave with an integral belfry and aisles, and a chancel with a vestry. The east front features a wide gable with lean-to aisles on either side, set beneath roofs with a shallower angle than the nave’s. A pointed arched double doorway is centrally positioned below a three-light stepped lancet window, flanked by tall stepped buttresses that terminate at the springing of the arch. Decorative red brickwork frames the buttresses, linked to horizontal brick banding extending the full width of the gables and terminating at the sloping aisle corner buttresses. The doors are double planked with elaborate strap hinges. Lower buttresses define the junctions of the nave and aisles. The nave has four bays, each with a pair of lancet windows set between low stepped buttresses. The chancel has two bays with side offshuts; the south offshut has a pointed arched doorway with a single side window. A tall chimney with an elaborate corbelled cap at the junction of the nave and chancel supports a bell and gabled bell cover on its east face. The east gable of the chancel incorporates the end of a vestry offshut to the left.

The interior is simply furnished with painted plaster and brick surfaces. A complex roof structure features steeply-pitched king post trusses with elongated braces extending outwards from the tie beam soffits. The church contains three windows with stained glass by Morris and Co. The three-light east window depicts The Virgin, Christ as Love, and St John in separate panels by Edward Burne-Jones, with a circular light above depicting angels with pipes, also by Burne-Jones. The north window, of two lights, depicts St Thomas and St Hilda in separate panels by Burne-Jones. The south window of two lights depicts St George and Christ (Salvator Mundi) by Henry Dearle.

The church replaced an earlier St Thomas' 'church', originally a working men’s institute in Union Street, Hyde, locally known as ‘Stephen’s Chapel.’