Parish Church of St Thomas

Parish Church of St Thomas

A mid-to-late 19th-century church built of roughly squared random white Cefn rubble with gold limestone ashlar dressings and slate roof. The building comprises a nave with lean-to aisles, a chancel, and a tower with spire positioned to the north-east over the vestry.

The west front features shafts and gablets to buttresses flanking the west aisle windows, which have plate tracery. A gabled west porch with paired foliate shafts supports a deeply moulded arch, its gable cutting into a four-light west window. This window is plate traceried with paired two-light lancets with trefoils and a central eight-foiled rose window, all set within an arched recess. The five-bay aisles have paired lancets with rose windows in the clerestory, set in recesses with shafts between pilaster buttresses.

A small corridor to the south-east links the church to a gabled vestry added by John Oldrid Scott in 1910. The north aisle has a heavy gabled porch with clustered shafts to an arch with text in the outer line. Beyond the nave, the tower is linked to the aisle by a two-storeyed gabled porch block with shafts to a moulded arched doorway and a two-light plate traceried window.

The three-stage tower is massively detailed. A stair turret forms the north-west angle buttress, terminating in a squat octagonal spire. Paired and triple lancet windows pierce the north and east faces, while paired bell chamber lights have shafts to moulded arches. A corbel table with gargoyles runs at the angles. The shingled broach spire has a square base with crocketed gables on each face, carrying open-work cast-iron clock faces. Arcading occurs in the lower stage to the north and east of the tower. The chancel east window has plate tracery set in a recess with shafts.

Interior

The nave arcade comprises five bays with marble octagonal piers bearing heavy foliate capitals that carry unchamfered stepped arches. The clerestory is articulated by marble shafts carried on stone corbels, interrupted by a continuous sill band. Foliate corbels support the wall posts of the roof trusses. The clerestory features a triple arches arcade in each bay, with rose windows set in the central arch; the outer arches are now painted and studded with gilded fleurs de lys. The roof is divided into two bays for each bay of the nave, with braced collar trusses carrying short king posts. Cusped wind braces occur to the lower purlins. Decorated wrought iron ties with posts link to the main timber collar. Triple banded shafts with heavy foliate capitals support the chancel arch.

At the west end of the nave stands a font on a dais—a shallow basin carried on a stumpy base with stiff leaf capitals and side shafts of marble with white stone stiff leaf capitals. An alabaster and Caen stone pulpit features marble dressings including green marble shafts with fern-leaf capitals, heavily undercut; the marble upper section is divided by red shafts with white panels studded with agate, shamrock capitals, and a frieze; a bar rail curves to a staircase. Marble steps ascend to the chancel and sanctuary, with encaustic tiled texts in the risers.

The chancel has a barrel vaulted timber roof with scissor braces to close-set rafters and polished granite shafts to the east window. Open traceried choir stalls line the space. Early-English style wall arcading adorns the sanctuary, interlaced to the east wall with marble shafts and foliate panelling against the wall surface. A marble and painted stone reredos representing the crucifixion with flanking angels was added in 1891. An organ is set behind an arch to the north, and a two-bay arcade with clustered polished granite shafts leads to a lady chapel to the south.

Stained Glass

The stained glass is mainly by Ward and Hughes and represents a clear development of their style across the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The earliest windows appear to be those in the lady chapel (with commemoration dates of 1860 and 1867) and in the chancel east window, all executed in a neo-medieval style. Similar neo-medieval work appears in the eastern-most windows of the south aisle (with commemoration dates of 1869, 1872, and 1875) and the north aisle windows (with dates of 1866, 1868, and 1872). Western windows are more purely pictorial in style (dated 1869, 1878, and 1890), while the south-west windows of the aisle (dated 1889 and 1905) adopt a renaissance style suggesting the influence of Kempe.