Church Of St Thomas

The Church of St Thomas is a parish church dating from 1844, designed by Thomas Hopper. It is constructed of sandstone ashlar on a chamfered plinth, with fishscale tile roofs and a Lombard frieze throughout. The church is built in the Romanesque style, with a cruciform plan and a squat spire to the tower. It includes a south-east vestry. The nave is buttressed in two bays, featuring round-headed windows with nook shafts. The west door is similarly styled. The tower rises one stage above the nave, with narrow round-headed windows to the belfry, two on each face. It has a moulded parapet and an octagonal stair turret lit by two small round-headed openings on the north-west corner. A squat octagonal spire features one tier of four gabled lucarnes. The transepts are single-bay, each with a window in the gable end consisting of two round-headed lights, also with nook shafts; the south window incorporates a doorway below. The short chancel is one bay, with an east window designed as a triplet of round-headed lights. A flat-roofed vestry adjoins the south side, accessed via a round-headed doorway on the east. The interior is relatively plain but largely unaltered, with plastered panelled roofs and a rib vault with a foliated boss to the tower. Original fittings and furnishings from 1844 are present, including a Romanesque-style wooden pulpit, brass altar rails enclosing a raised, semi-circular sanctuary with a carved reredos depicting angels blowing trumpets, benches to the nave and box pews to the transepts. A screened-off baptistery occupies the north-west corner of the nave. It features a raised encaustic tiled floor, separated from the nave by a low brass rail, and a small, trefoil-shaped Byzantine-style font supported by three red marble columns. Stained glass dates from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Monuments on the east wall of the south transept commemorate Mary Milbourne Swinnerton (died 1854, a co-founder of the church) represented by a kneeling female figure, and her son, Sir William Milbourne Milbourne Swinnerton Pilkington (died 1855), depicted with a draped urn; both monuments were created by G. Lewis and Co. of Cheltenham. The church was financed by Sir William Pilkington of nearby Butterton Hall (now demolished) and stands alone in a field.