Church Of St Thomas

The Church of St Thomas is a parish church dating from 1840-41, designed by Edmund Sharpe. A chancel and steeple were added in 1852-53 by Sharpe and Paley. The building is constructed of coursed squared sandstone and ashlar, with slate roofs, plain parapets to the gables and eaves. It is built in the Early English Revival style. The west front features five tall, stepped lancet windows above a triple doorway composed of two-centred moulded arches without capitals, set under a triplet of stepped gables, the central gable cutting across a string course. Clasping buttresses rise into arcaded turrets capped with a finial. To either side of the west front are single lancet windows. The aisle walls feature six triplets of tall, stepped lancets between buttresses. The chancel has two bays with single lancets on the south side, and a triplet of tall, stepped lancets at the east end, all under separate hoodmoulds. A two-light window with plate tracery, comprising two trefoiled lancets below a quatrefoil, is located at the east end of the south aisle. The steeple is situated in the angle between the north aisle and chancel, and comprises a square tower of two stages with clasping buttresses and a stair turret projecting from the north-west corner. Above the aisle level, the tower is octagonal, with trefoiled sub-arches with louvres on the cardinal faces of the belfry stage. The spire is octagonal and has two tiers of lucarnes on the cardinal faces, a finial, and an iron cross. The interior features galleries on the north, south and west sides, supported by quatrefoil cast-iron columns with brackets above the capitals. A second tier of columns supports an arcade-plate from which roof trusses spring; these trusses have scissor-beams, kingposts, two purlins and windbraces, all of a thin cross-section. The tall chancel arch, dated 1852, is deeply moulded, carried on ringed shafts. The triple lancets of the east window are deeply splayed, also with ringed shafts and a linked hoodmould. The roof incorporates closely-spaced, thin trusses with arched braces joined at their head by a collar purlin, forming a pointed trefoil outline. The church was established as a result of disputes regarding services at the Parish Church of St Mary, and was built by subscription. A district was assigned to it in 1844, and it was consecrated in 1845.