Church Of St Thomas

CRICKET ST THOMAS CP ST30NE CRICKET PARK 4/11 Church of St Thomas 4.2.58 GV II* Anglican parish church. C14 origins, but almost totally rebuilt c1868 for the second Lord Bridport. Knapped and squared flint, with Ham stone ashlar dressings; Welsh slate roofs with stone slab base courses between stepped coped gables with cross finials. Three-unit plan of single-bay chancel, 2-bay nave and south transept, with south-east vestry and west porch and short west tower with spirelet. Chancel has plinth, angled corner buttresses, eaves course; east window a 3-liqht, C14 style traceried, in hollowed recess with plain stopped label; no window on north side. Vestry has flat roof behind moulded plain parapet, with C14 style 2-light windows in south and east walls. South transept has angled corner buttresses, a 3-light south window matching that of chancel and a small lancet in gable over and a single-light window in the west wall. Nave has angled corner buttresses, one 3-light window in south wall and 2 in north, and one in the west gable set over the porch; west porch has angled corner buttresses, 4-centre outer and inner arches, and a small cusped lancet in gable, small 2-light side windows. Tower its on a corbel-table of the west nave gable, and has an offset plinth and offset angled pilasters, with minature gables to each face and small steeplet terminating in a windvane, Interior apparently totally C19, with arched timber rib-and-panel ceilings; the chancel and south sanctuary (transept) arches in C15 style and could incorporate work of that date. Late C19 panelled reredos; the communion rail, priest desk, pulpit, pews all of c1868, the font in timber with openwork timber cover, first used in 1881. Many monuments to the Nelson (Lord bronte) family and Hood (Lord Bridport) family; particularly fine is that on chancel south wall commemorating Alexander Hood, died 1814, designed and signed by J Soane, Archt, with black marble base topped by a white marble monument with typical Soanian pediment on Ionic columns framing the memorial plaque; opposite on north wall a monument of similar character but of lesser design, unsigned, to the Rev<. William Earl Nelson, died 1835. Mounted on the north nave wall is a fragment of the alter cloth used in the Coronation Service of Queen Elizabeth II. (The grading of this church solely on the strength of the Soane Monument). (VCH Somerset Vol IV, 1978, pp140-141; Pevsner N, Buildings of England, South and West Somerset, 1958).

Listing NGR: ST3728908584