Church Of St Thomas

Church of St Thomas, Horseshoe Hill

Built in 1901–2 by architects Percy B Freeman and Gilbert Ogilvy, the Church of St Thomas is an excellent example of a small country church in the Arts and Crafts tradition. The building was commissioned by Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton Bart. of the brewing family, paid for as the first church for Upshire, which had previously been a hamlet of Waltham Abbey without its own place of worship (though around 1855 Sir William Buxton had built a combined school and chapel).

Freeman, born 1859, had briefly assisted several accomplished late Gothic Revival architects including G G Scott Junior, Bodley and Garner, and Temple Moore before establishing independent practice around 1885. Ogilvy, born 1868, trained under the prominent Edinburgh architect Hippolyte Blanc. Together they created a building rooted in local building traditions and marked by high-quality craftsmanship throughout.

The church is constructed of roughcast with freestone dressings, red clay-tiled roofs, and a timber-boarded bell turret with a shingled spire. It comprises a nave and chancel in one, with a north aisle and continuous vestry under a catslide roof. The stone chimney stack features distinctive chequered flint decoration on the north elevation.

The two side elevations present very different characters. The north side is dominated by its large catslide roof spanning the nave, chancel, aisle and vestry, punctuated only by the chimney stack at the junction between aisle and vestry. Bays are marked by stubby buttresses with square-headed windows of two and three lights, except the west bay of the aisle which has a pointed two-light opening. The south side, having no aisle, presents a taller wall with larger windows. Buttresses are spaced irregularly; the three nave windows are square-headed whilst the chancel windows are pointed with distinctive spiky tracery in the heads derived from Decorated models. The east window is a conventional three-light Perpendicular design. A timber bellcote straddles the roof at the west end of the nave, boarded with two layers of louvre openings and a shingled chamfer spire. An attractive feature is the suite of well-preserved plank-and-cover strip doors with fine original ironwork by W Bainbridge Reynolds.

Internally, despite the continuous external roof, there is a structural division between nave and chancel marked by a chancel arch with chamfers dying into the responds. The north side has a timber four-bay arcade with moulded posts and a brattished plate carrying the nave roof. The roof is of tie-beam and crown-post design, the crown post having four-way bracing, with plaster applied in front of the rafters. The chancel features a canted plaster ceiling divided into panels by moulded ribs with bosses, enriched with relief sprays and vases of flowers executed by L A Turner, who also carried out the wood and stone carving throughout the church. The bellcote is supported on a stout open timber frame with arched braces and two scissor-braced bays above. The floor is laid with cream and red paving.

The church contains a notable collection of Arts and Crafts fixtures. The original wine-glass pulpit displays delicate carved detail and small piercings on each face. The lectern dates from 1907. The communion table was designed by Lawrence Turner. Communion rails date from 1912. The doors are fitted with good attractive ironwork. The font, an unusual First World War memorial of 1922, is made of wood, six-sided and stands on three posts. The chancel includes an attractive timber wall tablet to Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton Bart (died 1915) and his wife Lady Victoria, with delicate coat of arms, gilded lettering and painted foliage decoration. Other original features include a painted text of Psalm 100 over the chancel arch and hanging and wall lamps by Bainbridge Reynolds.

Freeman and Ogilvy's creation represents a significant departure from mid-Victorian ecclesiastical practice, deliberately looking to local building traditions and emphasizing high-quality craftsmanship rather than archaeological pastiche. Such churches are rare, and the exceptional standard of execution is evident throughout, particularly in the plaster decoration of the chancel and the ironwork of the doors.