Church Of St Thomas A Becket

EAST COULSTON EAST COULSTON VILLAGE ST 95 SE (south side) 6/132 Church of St Thomas a Becket 11.9.68 II Anglican parish church. C12, C14, C17, restored 1868 by Richard Gane of Trowbridge. Rubble stone and brick, Welsh slate roof. Nave with west doorway, north vestry, north transept and chancel. West end of nave has C19 Tudor-arched doorway with double doors, string course over to 3-light mullioned and transomed window, probably C17, brick gable above, diagonal buttresses. Single bell hung on west gable with gabled canopy over. South side of nave has blocked C12 doorway with crocketed capitals and missing shafts, blank tympanum and roll-moulded round arch, buttresses with offsets either side, 2-light C19 mullioned casement to right. Chancel with lower roofline has two C19 geometric-style windows with hoodmoulds, 3-light C19 geometric east window, coped verge with cross finial, north side has one C19 two-light geometric window, blocked pointed opening. C14 north vestry has square-headed light to east, reset cusped window head, diagonal buttresses to north with 3-light C19 mullioned casement in larger, partly blocked opening. Small gable vestry to right has 2-light recessed chamfered mullioned casement and diagonal buttress. Interior: Nave has C19 2 1/2 bay roof on stone corbels, strengthened 1935, stone floors. Pointed late Medieval doorway to C19 vestry, possibly former entrance. North transept with wide continuously chamfered pointed arch, with traces of painted decoration on east jamb, plastered barrel vaulted ceiling, roll-moulded pointed piscina on south wall. C19 chancel arch with attached shafts and keel moulding, set in C19 wall with quatrefoil decoration, C19 chancel roof partly concealed behind inserted boarded ceiling, roll-moulded pointed piscina on south wall retained, 1728 marble floor. Fittings: 1860s stained glass in east window, brass plaque by south window of chancel records 1868 restoration. Pews from Colerne, Church of St John the Baptist. C12 cylindrical stone font with simple blind arcading. Grey and white marble wall tablet with segmental pediment on north wall of chancel to Jacobus (sic) Meredith died 1746, brass on floor to James Meredith, rector died 1712. Brasses on south wall of nave to Elizabeth Godolphin died 1667 and to Thomas Lambe died 1741. A south transept was removed in 1842. (VCH, Wiltshire, Vol 8, 1965)

Listing NGR: ST9525853956