Church Of St Thomas Of Canterbury

The Church of St Thomas of Canterbury is a parish church with elements dating from the 12th and 13th centuries, though most of the structure is from the 15th century, with restoration around 1864. It is built of red sandstone, with limestone and Ham stone dressings, and features tiled roofs. The church includes a two-bay nave, a south aisle, a south porch, a west tower, and a heated vestry located to the north of the chancel.

The three-stage tower has a Victorian addition of a crenellated parapet, which is situated between original finials and features three square-headed openings and a string course. The tower also has Decorated 2-light bell-openings, diagonal buttresses, and a stair turret topped with a conical stone spire in the northeast corner. The south front has 2-light Perpendicular windows, while the east end and northwest end of the nave have 3-light windows, and there is a 4-light window to the northeast.

The porch features a moulded pointed arch and contains a piscina inside, along with a pointed arch doorway leading into the nave. The interior is rendered and includes a Norman pillar in the south aisle with Perpendicular arcades. The western respond features a moulded corbel from around 1200. Notable interior features include well-carved bench ends from the 16th century, a fine Perpendicular octagonal font with traces of paint, and an early 17th-century carved wooden pulpit with a contemporary wooden three-bay arcade serving as a lectern.

In the chancel, there are painted and gilded stone tablets commemorating John Stawell, who died in 1661, and another for John Stawell, who died in 1603. The south chapel contains two notable tombs: one for Sir Mathew de Stawell, who died in 1379, and his wife Elizabeth, featuring two squirrels at her feet and an angel at her head, made of York stone with traces of colour; and another for Sir John Stawell, who died in 1603, and his wife, crafted in alabaster.

The church also has fragments of medieval painted glass depicting saints in the upper lights of the south aisle windows and at the southwest end of the nave, with the west and north windows created by Clayton and Bell in 1865. The interior retains a fine collection of fittings and memorials, largely unaltered.