Church of St Thomas is a Grade II listed building in the Somerset local planning authority area, England. First listed on 25 February 1955. Church.
Church of St Thomas
- WRENN ID
- bitter-cornice-violet
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Somerset
- Constituency
- Taunton and Wellington MP: Gideon Amos (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 25 February 1955
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Church of St Thomas, Orchard Portman
- OS grid reference
- ST 265 211
- Coordinates
- 50.98469, -3.04723
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St Thomas is a parish church dating back to the 12th century. The chancel was rebuilt in the 14th century, the tower constructed and the church refenestrated in the 15th century, and the chancel refenestrated and the north chapel demolished around 1850. The tower was restored in 1856, and the entire church underwent restoration and refitting in 1861, including the re-erection of the north aisle arcade. The church is constructed from roughcast over rubble, with squared and coursed blue lias stone for the tower and Ham stone dressings. The nave, chancel, and aisles are all covered by a slate roof with coped verges. The plan includes a chancel, a four-bay nave, narrow north and south aisles, a south porch, and a west tower.
The crenellated, three-stage west tower features diagonal buttresses at the west end, setback buttresses at the east end, string courses, gargoyles, two-light louvred bell openings, a cinquefoil headed window, a Perpendicular mullioned and transomed four-light west window, a moulded pointed arch west doorway with a 19th-century door, and a north-east stair turret. The south front has two-light windows flanking a single-storey gabled porch with a pointed arch opening; the interior of the porch has plasterboard with applied half-timbering, a moulded arch, and a 19th-century door. Lancets flank a blocked Tudor arch doorway on the south front of the chancel, with diagonal buttresses to the east end. Three lancet windows are on the east end, and lancets are on the north front, flanking an engaged semi-circular pillar. The north aisle has three two-light windows between stepped buttresses, and a blocked moulded pointed arch opening.
Inside, the church is rendered. It has a plastered barrel vault to the nave, monopitch roofs to the aisles, and a ribbed roof to the chancel. There is a four-bay arcade of 12th-century circular piers with scalloped capitals. A 19th-century wooden chancel arch is carried on angel corbels, and a squint is located in the south-east wall, along with a moulded semi-circular tower arch. A blocked ogee-head opening leads to the rood stair at the east end of the north aisle, and three-quarters of a blocked Tudor arch opening is visible in the north aisle. A Norman circular font is also present. The church contains 19th-century fittings, including Romanesque-style arcaded panelling for the choir stalls and a screen to the tower. Other fittings include a pulpit. There are no monuments of particular note. The engaged column on the exterior of the chancel is a remnant of a chapel or transept that was demolished in the mid-19th century.
Local climate
Church of St Thomas receives an average of 810 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 50% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 58% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 32 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 58% of listed buildings. Of these, 13 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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