Church Of St Thomas The Apostle

The Church of St Thomas the Apostle is an Anglican church of 1881, designed by J Peacock. It is constructed of regularly-coursed rock-faced sandstone with ashlar dressings, featuring coped gables with moulded kneelers and a plain tile and concrete tile roof. The church comprises a nave with a lean-to porch, north and south aisles and transepts, a north aisle porch, a chancel, and a vestry to the south side.

The west front is gabled, incorporating a semi-circular arched window with two orders of arches and bold chevron ornamentation. Flanking ashlar panels are present, and above the window is an apex niche containing a statue of St Thomas. A lean-to porch is set between gabled buttresses and features a blind arcade of two sets of semi-circular headed arches. Further Romanesque detailing includes semi-circular headed side wall doorways and a triple lancet window, all flanking the blind arcade. The south aisle gable features a massive, pseudo-quatrefoil round window and coupled lancets below. A low clasping buttress marks the corner, and tall lancets rise from a steeply chamfered, moulded plinth. Moulded strings link cills and arched heads, below a plain corbel table. An advanced gabled transept features a pair of lancets below a single apex light. The vestry’s east gable has a four-light mullion and transom window. Angle buttresses define the chancel gable, supporting three shallow semi-circular headed windows above a moulded string, surmounted by a large wheel window of eight panels. A north side wall to the chancel includes a three-light and a two-light window, separated by a buttress. A truncated octagonal fleche is present, with 20th-century alterations to the chancel roof, which has coped gables bearing cross finials at both ends. The gabled north porch features three orders of arches and attached shafts with scalloped capitals, below an ashlar gable apex with banded chevron decoration.

Inside, the nave arcades have three bays with moulded semi-circular arches carried on cylindrical piers with scalloped capitals. A tall chancel arch, beneath a pointed hood mould, rises from slender marble shafts with crocket capitals, carried on tapered corbels. Segmental arched openings from the chancel into the transepts are also carried on shafts rising from corbels, supporting short arcades of three segmental arches. A shouldered doorway and undivided sedilia are located beneath a wide segmental arch to the chancel’s south wall, with an arched recess containing an inset ambry to the north wall. The chancel’s east end is dominated by an alabaster reredos with eight trefoil panels decorated with mosaic images of the Apostles. Above this is a low arcade of five arches, three of which are windows, with two bearing mosaic panels. A wheel window above contains stained glass depicting Christ in Majesty. Two stained glass side windows date from 1945-50, by Nuttgens. The pulpit, font and cover, and choir seating are contemporary with the building.