Parish Church Of St Thomas The Apostle

Parish Church of St Thomas the Apostle, Lymington

This parish church occupies a key position on the north side of High Street. It has 13th-century origins, evidenced by archaeological findings at the east and west ends. A chapel was added around 1325 with a roof of circa 1500. The tower dates to 1670. The remainder of the church was thoroughly rebuilt during the 18th and 19th centuries, with refurbishment and re-roofing in 1910–1911. A sacristy was added in 1931, and a church hall designed by Roger Pinckney was attached to the north side of the nave in 1980–1981.

The building is constructed of stone rubble with cement-rendered north, south and west walls. The limestone ashlar tower features a lead-roofed cupola. Roofs are tiled throughout. The plan comprises a nave with north and south aisles containing galleries, a west end organ gallery and narthex, a north transept, chancel, a southeast tower at the east end of the south aisle, a northeast chapel, and a sacristy built against the north face of the north transept.

The chancel features diagonal buttresses with set-offs and a 5-light 19th-century east window with Perpendicular style tracery and transom. The south side has a 3-light 19th-century Geometric Decorated window and a small 3-light segmental-headed window with Perpendicular tracery. The north wall of the chancel contains a very tall slit window. The tower is two-staged with diagonal buttresses to the lower stage only. A moulded south doorway holds a 17th-century style round-headed panelled door. Above sits a very tall square-headed 3-light window with uncusped lights. Square-headed mullioned belfry windows are set beneath a cornice broken for 1907 clock faces. A timber arcaded cupola with lead dome and weathervane sits on an octagonal base, in place by 1740 and possibly dating from the 1680s. The south side displays tall 2-light windows of 1871 with Geometric Decorated tracery. A triple gable crowns the west end, where the narthex has a hammer-dressed stone plinth with 2-light windows to north and south and a 5-light west window. The north aisle render is blocked out, with three 2-light traceried windows of 1868. The north transept has a 3-light Decorated style window, adjacent to the 1931 sacristy with hipped roof. The northeast chapel features angle buttresses and two tall 14th-century Decorated north windows, plus an east window with intersecting tracery.

The interior is predominantly classical in character. Walls at the east end are unplastered, revealing complex archaeology. The 1811 narthex contains staircases to north and south galleries. The original west wall (now internal) retains a 13th-century lancet window and a circa 1200 west respond with a base featuring spurs. The east end walls are stripped of plaster to expose evidence of tall, shafted blind arcading on the north and south chancel walls. A 13th-century trefoil-headed piscina with short squat shafts survives in the south wall of the chancel. The northeast chapel, built as a mortuary chapel by Hugh Courtenay, preserves a ceiled wagon roof of circa 1500, divided into panels by moulded ribs with rustic bosses at intersections. A mid-13th-century north doorway in the north transept now leads to the 1931 sacristy. Remains of a medieval pier survive at the southeast internal corner of the tower. The remaining visible fabric and features date from the 18th century onwards.

The dominant interior features are the galleries. The north and south galleries (1792 and 1811) are supported on two tiers of Tuscan columns functioning as arcades. The west gallery rests on cast-iron columns. Gallery frontals are panelled with dentil cornices. The south gallery has a plain barrel roof. The north gallery, extending into the chancel and truncating the transept walls, features a canted plastered ceiling above two boxed-in tie beams. This gallery was reduced in length in 1927 to enhance legibility of the Courtenay chapel. A 1910–1911 plastered barrel vault spans the nave with transverse ribs and a cornice decorated with ornamental plasterwork. The chancel has a similar roof with a pointed barrel. A flat ceilure covers the sanctuary, framed in decorated plaster with gilded cherub's heads. The font of 1873 is an octagonal stone bowl carved with trefoil-headed motifs on a circular stem. An 18th-century baluster font has been preserved. A polygonal timber pulpit of 1911 was designed by J Bevir; its base and steps date to 1950. 1940s choir stalls have poppyhead ends. Nave benches, probably from 1873, feature square-headed ends with sunk panels. Numerous hatchments and wall monuments adorn the church, including a Rysbrack bust commemorating Charles Colebourn (died 1747) and a monument to Captain Josias Rogers (died 1795) by Bacon Senior, whose relief figure of a woman is described as exquisite. A brass eagle lectern is present. Stained glass includes an east window by the Hardman Company. An impressive and unusual 17th-century Flemish pictorial window has been re-sited in the north gallery. Royal Arms erected on the west gallery in 1824 are probably an adaptation of 17th-century Royal Arms.

The church was originally built as a Chapel of the Priory of Christchurch.

The church is listed at Grade II* for exceptional interest as a building preserving archaeological evidence of its 13th-century origins, a good early 14th-century chapel with a circa 1500 roof, a 17th-century tower, and three classical galleries of the late 18th and 19th centuries. The 1910–11 roofs are architecturally attractive, and the church contains many notable monuments.