Church of Saint Thomas

Church of Saint Thomas

A mid-19th century church built in rock-faced squared stone with Bath stone dressings and slate roofs of greenish hue. The building comprises a nave with aisles, chancel, and a north-east tower with spire, arranged in a cross plan.

The broad west end features three lancet windows with linked hoodmoulds between five-sided buttresses topped with steep gabled caps, rising above a lean-to west porch. The porch has a flat parapet, high plinth, three buttresses, and two small cusped single-light windows with hoods linked to a string course carried around the buttresses. A string course runs below the parapet. Both the south and north doors have pointed cusped arches with double doors bearing ornate hinges, approached by steep flights of stone steps.

The aisle sides have four paired lancets arranged in two pairs with buttresses between them. The fifth bay features a gable over a taller window with Decorated Gothic tracery: a four-light window on the south side and a simpler three-light on the north. The south side has a high plinth with a basement door beneath the gabled window.

The tower attached to the left of the north aisle is three-staged with clasping buttresses at the corners up to the second stage. The ground floor contains a pointed west door with ornate hinges and a north lancet, with a string course below the second stage. The second stage has steep pointed lancets on each side. The third stage features ashlar quoins and two moulded lancet bell-openings on each face with column shafts and timber louvres, with a string course at impost level. Clock faces are fitted to the west and north sides. An ashlar broach spire with lucarnes and weathercock crowns the tower. An east-side stair tower rises to the second stage with a chamfered stone roof. A lean-to vestry adjoins the left of the tower with a pointed north door and two-light and single-light east windows.

The east end has clasping buttresses and a large five-light window of stepped lancets with linked hoods. The chancel south side has a single lancet with a lean-to organ chamber to the right of the south transept. The organ chamber has one lancet on the east and a two-light window on the south. The transept has an east pointed door up a flight of stone steps with a pointed door, and a south window with Decorated tracery containing four lights with quatrefoils and sexfoil in the head. A single lancet is on the west side.

Interior

The porch has a flat beamed ceiling and broad segmental-pointed doorway with hoodmould opening into the church. The tall nave has a scissor-rafter roof forming a six-sided profile. Five-bay arcades with ashlar quatrefoil piers and double-chamfered pointed arches with linked hoods and leaf-carved bosses are a dominant feature. Massive carved head corbels at the east ends of the arcades include a 19th-century officer to the left and a medieval knight to the right. Carved heads also appear at the ends of the hoodmoulds—a bishop and a king—and flanking the transept arches, with two bearded heads to the north and a youth and bearded man to the south. The aisle lean-to roofs are braced by struts from corbels, with pointed arches on corbels at the east ends.

The chancel arch rests on corbelled shafts with red sandstone at the foot and head of triple black marble shafts on carved head corbels. The chancel roof is ornamented with brattished wallplate and panelling over the sanctuary. The chancel and south transept have ashlar walls with diagonal scribed ashlar. Two-bay arcades flank the chancel, featuring red sandstone quatrefoil piers with stiff-leaf capitals and similar corbels on carved heads. Red sandstone hoods rise over the double-chamfered pointed arches, and also over the east side of the chancel arch with carved head stops. The north side has a lean-to aisle of two bays with a transverse arch buttressing the chancel arcade.

One step ascends into the chancel, with another step before the altar rail. The east end has ringed black marble shafts to the stepped lancets of the five-light east window with hoodmoulds. An ornate reredos with a nine-bay arcade in red stone features cusped pointed arches, hoodmoulds, and veined marble shafts. Diaper-work above is surmounted by a red stone cornice. Within the arches is brilliant gold mosaic with symbol and pattern decoration alternating, including passion flowers, lilies, implements of the Crucifixion, wheat, and vine. A cusped-headed shelf recess is on the north and a cusped piscina with red stone head on the south, with double sedilia featuring a marble shaft, red stone cusped heads, and hoodmoulds.

Fittings and Glass

The carved ashlar font has a bowl with cusped pointed arcading outlined in double raised strips with raised fleurs-de-lys between arches and nailhead moulding at the rim. Its base is an octofoil keeled shaft with leaf capitals. An ornate octagonal pulpit of Caen stone, given in memory of Pascoe St Leger Grenfell, features diaper patterning under Gothic two-light and quatrefoil panels with rosettes and angle shafts on a base with squat angle shafts. A brass eagle lectern is present, together with pine pews with scrolled bench ends. A timber screen divides the chancel from the north arcade. Stalls with poppyhead bench-ends and open fronts with quatrefoils over pointed arches line the chancel. The altar rail is brass on four brass Gothic scrolled uprights. An organ with a plaque identifying it as made by Vowles of Bristol in 1938 is installed.

Stained glass includes patterned quarries in the five-light east window and chancel south lancet. The north aisle fifth bay contains a three-light window of Faith, Charity and Hope to E.M. Grenfell (1894) by Jones & Willis. The south aisle fifth bay has a three-light window by Celtic Studios (1978) depicting the Ascension, Sanctus and Resurrection, and the south transept contains a single light by the same studio from 1972.