Church Of St Thomas

Church of St Thomas

This is a parish church of early 14th-century origin with 15th-century additions, substantially restored in 1886 by W Basset Smith. The building is constructed of rubblestone with ashlared limestone dressings, and is roofed in lead and plain tile.

The church comprises a west tower, nave, south porch, chancel and north vestry. The 15th-century tower is a three-stage structure of ashlar with a plinth, two string courses and an embattled parapet. On the west elevation is a chamfered pointed arch with a 2-light window featuring a hoodmould with headstops, a very small window above in the second stage, and in the third stage a chamfered pointed arch single-light louvred bell-opening. The south elevation has an extruded staircase turret, with a small pointed arch window in the second stage and a bell opening similar to the west in the third stage. Both the north and east elevations have round-arched louvred bell-openings.

The 15th-century nave has a lead roof with an ashlar coped parapet. The north wall includes a plinth across two bays to the east, with buttresses and a blocked 14th-century doorway with a pointed arch and hoodmould. The wall also features a chamfered pointed arch 2-light window with 14th-century Y-tracery and hoodmould (restored in the 19th century), and a chamfered round-arched 3-light window with hoodmould.

The south wall of the nave includes a south porch with a plain tile roof, coped gable with kneelers, and diagonal buttresses. The porch has a four-centred arch doorway with hoodmould and headstops, and 19th-century double plank doors. The main south doorway features a heavily moulded pointed arch with headmould and a 19th-century 6-panel door. The south wall continues with multiple buttresses interspersed with chamfered pointed arch 3-light windows with hoodmoulds, some featuring headstops.

A late 19th-century chapel and vestry extends to the east with a plain tile roof and coped gables. The vestry's north wall has a plain chamfered 3-light window and a flat-arched doorway with plank door; the east wall has a plain chamfered 2-light window.

The chancel features a south wall with a plinth and includes a chamfered pointed arch 2-light window with hoodmould, a priest's doorway with a double-moulded pointed arch with shafts, capitals and bases, hoodmould with stops and plank door, and a lancet with hoodmould. The east wall has a gable with kneelers and cross finial, diagonal buttresses, a sill band, and a chamfered pointed arch 2-light plate tracery window with hoodmould. Above in the gable is a small circular trefoil window.

The interior features a chamfered four-centred tower arch and a heavily moulded chancel arch with triple-shafted responds with capitals and bases. The nave is plain. The chancel walls are decorated with 19th-century painted squares and chevrons. A 19th-century organ backs into the vestry, and 19th-century furnishings include altar rails, table, pews, stalls, lectern and pulpit. A 20th-century metal reredos is present.

Notable fixtures include a 13th-century stone coffin lid featuring the bust of a woman in a sunk trefoiled recess with some remaining marginal inscription, and a 13th-century font with a circular bowl on four short shafts decorated with widely spaced head and leaf forms and a band around the rim. An 18th-century parish chest is also retained. Royal arms in a wooden frame hang on the north wall of the nave.

Monuments include a marble wall memorial on the north wall of the tower to Reverend Samuel Purefoy Harper (died 1838), a First World War memorial brass plaque on the north wall of the nave, and a 20th-century memorial brass plaque on the north-east wall of the chancel.

The 19th-century roofs feature brattished trusses set on re-used corbels in the nave, and 19th-century stained glass is present throughout.