Church Of St Thomas

ST 82 SE MELBURY ABBAS QUARRY LANE

8/190 Church of St Thomas 16.8.60. GV II*

Parish Church, 1852. By George Evans of Wimborne. Ashlar with tiled roofs and stone gable copings with finials. Moulded strings and plinth. Diagonal buttresses. Plan: nave, chancel, south aisle continuous with tower and south transept, north transept, north vestry, south porch. In the 'Decorated' style with flowing tracery. Tower: 3-stage, embattled, with diagonal buttresses and octagonal vice turret projecting above roof line with short spire: 2-centred west window under label with head-stops; belfrey has paired lancets with pierced stone panels. South aisle has 2 square headed, 2-light windows with flowing tracery. North nave windows are 2-centred, of 2 lights with flowing tracery. Transept windows are 2-centred with reticulated tracery. South chancel wall has a lancet with flowing tracery to the west and a 2-light, 2-centred window with flowing tracery to the east. The north wall of the chancel has a similar lancet. East chancel window of 3-lights with flowing tracery under 2-centred head. East vestry window of 2-lights with flowing tracery. South porch has 2-centred, moulded arch,shafted jambs and a label with head stops. South doorway has 2-centred, moulded head with continuous jambs and label with carved foliage stops, 2-centred vice door. Interior features: 2-centred, moulded chancel arch with shafted jambs and label with elaborate head-stops; 3 bay arcade with smaller supplementary bay west, 2-centred, of 2 chamfered orders on octagonal piers; 2-centred, moulded vestry arch with shafted jambs; other arches of 2 or 3 straight chamfered orders; nave and transept have hammer beam roofs with arch- braced collars springing from elaborately carved angel corbels; boarded, ribbed, waggon roof to chancel; flat, ribbed, boarded aisle roof; wooden pulpit with ogee-headed panels on stone base; octagonal pulpit with ogee-headed panels in baptistry under tower; pews with poppy heads carved in chancel; various C19 encaustic tiles; C19 glass. (RCHM, Dorset, vol IV, p 47, no 1. Newman J and Pevsner N. The Buildings of England: Dorset. Penguin, 1972, p 272.)

Listing NGR: ST8821020076