Church of St Thomas is a Grade II* listed building in the Breckland local planning authority area, England. First listed on 30 May 1960. A Medieval Church.
Church of St Thomas
- WRENN ID
- long-plaster-poplar
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- Breckland
- Constituency
- Mid Norfolk MP: George Freeman (Con)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 30 May 1960
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Medieval
- Address
- Church of St Thomas, the Street, Foxley
- OS grid reference
- TG 039 217
- Coordinates
- 52.75455, 1.02081
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St. Thomas is a parish church that dates from the medieval period and later. It is built of flint with ashlar and some brick dressings, featuring slate and pantile roofs. The church has a western tower, an aisleless nave with a south porch, and a chancel. The 14th-century western tower is supported by diagonal buttresses and has a rectangular projecting stair turret to the south with small quatrefoil windows. The west window, added in the 19th century, is a two-light plate-traceried design. The tower includes 14th-century two-light bell-openings with very low transoms, filled with knapped flint, and is topped with a crenellated parapet that once had tall corner pinnacles. The buttressed nave has four three-light panel-traceried Perpendicular windows. The south doorway, dating from the 14th century, features dying mouldings and carved label stops, while the plain north door is simpler. The chancel, which is from the 13th century, has three lancets and a three-light Y-traceried east window, along with a later two-light panel-traceried window to the south and a priest's door.
Inside, the tower and chancel arches are plain chamfered with polygonal responds. There is a simple cusped piscina in the chancel and a damaged 16th-century chancel screen with four fine painted dado panels. The church features a double-decker pulpit with a 17th-century clerk's desk and a pulpit box that is likely Victorian. There are five box pews to the east and ten crudely carved poppy-head bench ends, probably from the 16th century. The 14th-century octagonal font has quatrefoil panels, and there is an early 19th-century western gallery and a 17th-century communion rail. The medieval south door has fielded vertical panels and cover strips, and fragments of medieval stained glass can be found in the north-west nave window.
Local climate
Church of St Thomas receives an average of 770 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 65% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 55% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 16 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 84% of listed buildings. Of these, 9 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
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- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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