Roman Catholic Church of St Thomas and St Edmund with Lych Gate and walls to its south-east

Roman Catholic Church of St Thomas and St Edmund with Lych Gate and Walls

A Roman Catholic church built between 1848 and 1850, founded by Reverend Daniel Henry Haigh and designed by Charles Francis Hansom in a 14th-century Gothic style. The building is constructed of red sandstone with ashlar dressings and pitched roofs covered in Welsh slate.

The church plan comprises a nave with double aisles and a long chancel with a chapel to the right (formerly the sacristy). A sacristy was added to the south-west in 1933. At the west end, a tall square-plan tower stands to the left-hand side, now containing the main entrance, while an oratory (converted from a former porch in 1932) with an octagonal turret stands to the right. The church is linked to former abbey buildings, now a school under separate ownership.

The west end features a centrally positioned Gothic arched doorway with cusped moulded heads, now no longer in use. Above it rises a large Gothic arched window with six lights and traceried head, topped by a small Reuleaux triangle window. To the left, a corner buttress forms part of the tower, which has four stages with full height buttresses, traceried windows, a rose window at the third stage, and paired traceried lights in the bell stage. The tower is crowned by a stone broach spire with three tiers of lucarnes. At the base, a new entrance on the north side is enclosed by elaborate wrought iron railings, which also feature around the west front of the church.

The north side of the nave has projecting double aisles with pitched roofs, the outer aisle displaying traceried windows, and a small projecting transept (the former sacristy). The south side contains a continuous lean-to aisle with a former two-storey porch between decorative buttresses, containing an elaborately decorated doorway now blocked, with a three-light Gothic window above holding a central statue. Behind the porch stands the octagonal turret with an eight-gabled bell stage and crocketted spirelet. Two bays further east is an outer aisle beneath its own pitched roof, with the single-storey 1933 addition partially visible behind. The east end comprises a four-bay chancel with two-light windows in each bay and a large five-light Gothic arched window at the east gable containing a rose window in the top tracery.

Interior walls are painted white throughout. The building contains elaborate and intricate decorative and figurative carvings on head-stops, corbels and plinths, including statues. The large east and west windows and aisle windows contain 19th-century stained glass.

The nave has arcades to either side with chamfered pointed arches resting on octagonal stone columns with moulded capitals and bases. The timber roof to the nave is boarded with two tiers of cusped wind-braces and principal trusses with cusped arch braces brought down to wall posts resting on stone corbel heads. The south aisle roof also has cusped timbers, while the taller north aisle has plain rafters. The outer south aisle roof features a timber panelled ceiling richly painted with suns, stars, angels and saints. Low arched openings lead to confessionals in both aisles, with triple moulded arches to the outer aisles. The inner north aisle has a cusped archway at its east end leading to the Chapel of St Alphonsus, created in 1933-4 by Brother Aloysius (Frederick Winders) from the original sacristy. This chapel features a painted timber ceiling and wood panelling reused from the Abbot's Chapel.

The tall pointed chancel arch has moulded octagonal responds, with a raised deep chancel behind featuring an elaborate open timber roof. Wood-carved figures of saints adorn the chancel walls. An oak carved reredos by Pippet of Solihurst, introduced in 1897, displays a pinnacle throne for the Blessed Sacrament surrounded by four painted angels, with niches containing further paintings alternated with statues depicting the Benedictine Apostleship of England. The stone altar, pulpit, and stone tabernacle in the outer south aisle, together with the tomb altar and figure of Christ in the Passion Chapel, all feature elaborate figurative carving in similar style by unknown artists. The Lady Altar stands at the east end of the inner south aisle, reconstructed in 1947. Carved and painted wooden Stations of the Cross (artist unknown) are mounted on aisle walls but were formerly attached to the nave piers. The former entrance porch at the west end, now blocked off, contains an oratory dedicated to the English Roman Catholic Martyrs.

A mid to late 19th-century lych gate with boundary walls stands approximately 16 metres south-east of the church. Built in red sandstone ashlar with a stone hipped roof, it features two pointed entrance arches originally hung with cast iron gates, now lost, with the main arch later replaced. The gate is set within a stretch of walling approximately 30 metres long with moulded copings.