Church Of St Thomas And St James

WORSBROUGH BANK END ROAD SE30SE (north side)

2/69 Church of St. Thomas and St. James GV II Church. 1858, consecrated 1860. By Flockton and Sons for patron F. W. T. Vernon-Wentworth; vestry added 1879. Coursed, dressed sandstone, Welsh slate roof. 4-bay aisled nave with south porch, 2-bay chancel with north and south vestries the latter rising as a 3-stage tower. Gothic Revival, in Early English style. Nave: chamfered plinth, buttresses at west angle and between bays 3 and 4. Porch to bay 2 with shafts in jambs of pointed arch, coped gable with cross. Other bays have paired lancets with quoined reveals and hoodmoulds. Clerestorey with small, cusped lancets in recessed panels beneath eaves corbel table. West window of 3 lancets with separate hoods. Gable copings with crosses. Tower: angle buttresses to lower stages flanking lancet windows, string courses between stages. Paired belfry lancets, set in recessed panels beneath corbel tables, have louvres and string course rising as hood. Octagonal, broach spire with louvred 2-light lucarnes and weathervane. Chancel: lower; bay 2 beyond tower has string course rising over lancet and continuing over east window of 5 lancets set in recessed ashlar panel; 2 lancets on right into vestry.

Interior: octagonal piers to double-chamfered aisle arcades, similar chancel arch on responds. 2-bay arcade to north vestry and organ chamber has moulded arches, eastern arch subdivided by central pier with blind quatrefoil in ashlar spandrel. Encaustic-tiled sanctuary. Font: 1879, octagonal with wrought-iron cover; replaces original font made of coal. Pulpit: octagonal set on marble shafts and with carved panels in ogee-headed niches, eagle lecturn carved on cornice. Traceried dado panelling; contemporary fittings include linenfold-panelled, part-glazed inner porch doors beneath arch inscribed "Enter into His Gates with thanksgiving". Stained glass east and west windows by Barnett and Co. Leith. Church originally dedicated to St. Thomas prior to amalgamation with St. James' in 1955.

A. Wright, The First Hundred Years of St. Thomas' Worsbro' Dale church, booklet, 1959.

Listing NGR: SE3576204376