Church Of St Thomas

The Church of St Thomas is an Anglican parish church with origins in the 14th century, though it was almost entirely rebuilt around 1868 for the second Lord Bridport. It is constructed of knapped flint with Ham stone ashlar dressings, and has Welsh slate roofs with stone slab base courses, stepped coped gables and cross finials. The building comprises a single-bay chancel, a two-bay nave, a south transept, a south-east vestry, a west porch, and a short west tower with a spirelet.

The chancel features a plinth, angled corner buttresses, and an eaves course. The east window is a three-light, 14th-century style traceried window set in a hollowed recess with a plain stopped label; it has no window on the north side. The vestry has a flat roof behind a moulded parapet and contains 2-light windows in the south and east walls, also in a 14th-century style. The south transept has angled corner buttresses, a three-light south window matching the chancel’s, a small lancet in the gable, and a single-light window in the west wall. The nave also has angled corner buttresses, with three-light windows in the south wall, two in the north, and one in the west gable above the porch. The west porch has angled corner buttresses, a four-centre outer and inner arch, and a small cusped lancet in the gable, along with small two-light side windows. The tower is situated upon a corbel-table of the west nave gable and exhibits an offset plinth and angled pilasters, miniature gables to each face, and a spirelet topped with a windvane.

The interior is entirely 19th century, with arched timber rib-and-panel ceilings. The chancel and south sanctuary arches are in a 15th-century style and may incorporate older work. A late 19th-century panelled reredos is present, along with a communion rail, priest desk, pulpit, and pews, all dating from around 1868. The font is made of timber with an openwork timber cover, first used in 1881. Numerous monuments are dedicated to the Nelson and Hood families. A particularly fine monument on the chancel south wall commemorates Alexander Hood, who died in 1814; it was designed and signed by J Soane and consists of a black marble base topped by a white marble monument with a typical Soanian pediment on Ionic columns framing the memorial plaque. Opposite, on the north wall, is a monument of a similar character, though of lesser design and unsigned, dedicated to the Rev. William Earl Nelson, who died in 1835. A fragment of the altar cloth used in the Coronation Service of Queen Elizabeth II is mounted on the north nave wall.