Church of Saint Thomas a Becket

The Church of Saint Thomas a Becket is an Anglican parish church, dating from the late medieval period with substantial rebuilding in the 19th century. It is constructed of rubble stone with slate roofs and coped gables. The west tower is late medieval, while the nave and chancel were rebuilt in 1853-5. A north porch, north aisle, and north vestry were added in 1881. The tall west tower features a corbelled embattled parapet and a polygonal northeast stair tower. The west front of the tower was refaced in the earlier 19th century with squared grey limestone, accompanied by two thin diagonal buttresses of tooled grey stone and a large, Perpendicular Gothic, three-light, panel-traceried window above a recessed doorway. The doorway is a 19th-century ashlar segmental-pointed arch with tooled grey stone voussoirs, and contains board doors with iron scrolled hinges. A heraldic stone, originally from a large west porch before 1853, is reset above the doorway. A string course runs above the renewed stonework, and a small rectangular light is present at this level on each face, along with a two-light pointed bell-light containing cusped lights and a quatrefoil in the head, all with stone voussoirs. The stair tower is pierced with numerous small ashlar lights.

The nave has a long roof over the north aisle, punctuated by four gables – one for the projecting porch and three over large, pointed, three-light, traceried windows. The porch has a moulded pointed entry. The south side of the nave is plain with three 19th-century, pointed, three-light, Perpendicular Gothic style windows. The chancel has a large, gabled vestry projecting to the north, featuring a northeast corner chimney. Other features include a small, two-light north window with Caernarfon-type stepped heads to the lights, and a pointed panel in the gable with bi-colour voussoirs framing a small quatrefoil. The east end has a large, three-light pointed window with a sexfoil in the head, a hoodmould, and stone voussoirs. The south side of the chancel contains one two-light pointed window.

The interior has whitewashed plastered walls and open roofs. A seven-bay north arcade is present, with hoodmoulds and carved foliage stops. The chancel arch sits on corbelled wall-shafts with large, heavily-carved capitals. Fittings include a white marble font from 1854, by E.M. Goodwin, given by G. Lort Phillips; a pulpit from 1881, constructed of pierced stone with marble colonettes; and a reredos from 1921 by Coates Carter, which is a triptych with outer shutters, uncoloured figures, and texts. Stained glass includes a Crucifixion scene in the east window by Mayer of Munich (1881) and a Crucifixion scene in a south nave window, circa 1868, by Cox & Sons. Several memorial tablets are present, including a 14th or early 15th-century slab to Richard le Palmer with a Latin cross; a tablet to John Bernardiston and family (circa 1734); one to Owen Phillips and Elinor Phillips (died 1724 & 1748, by Thomas Beard of London); to Elizabeth Eliot (1780); to William Jordan and family (circa 1802); to Owen Phillips (died 1846, by J. Phillips of Haverfordwest); to John Lort and family (1848, by H. Phillips of Haverfordwest); to Richard Phillips (died 1860, by T. Gaffin of London); to Peregrine Lort-Phillips (died 1861, by Bedford); and to the Chambers family (1852-72), featuring a free-standing marble statue of a praying woman against a tall pedestal, by Sanders of London.