Description

LANCASTER

SD4761SE PENNY STREET
1685-1/8/224 (East side)
Church of St Thomas

GV II

Parish church. 1840-41. By Edmund Sharpe, with a chancel and
steeple of 1852-53 by Sharpe and Paley. Coursed squared
sandstone and ashlar, and slate roofs with plain parapets to
the gables and eaves. Aisled nave of 6 bays, under 3 separate
pitched roofs, with a single-bay western nave extension
forming a full-height narthex. 2-bay chancel and a steeple in
the angle between the north aisle and chancel. Early English
Revival style.
The west front has 5 tall stepped lancets with a continuous
hoodmould, and below these a triple doorway with 2-centred
moulded arches without capitals, set under a triplet of
stepped gables, each pierced with a trefoil; the central one
cuts across the string course at the base of the windows. To
either side are clasping buttresses with 2 offsets, these rise
into square and then octagonal arcaded turrets, capped with a
finial.
The return walls have a single lancet, and the west walls of
the aisles have a triplet of stepped lancets with clasping
buttresses on the external angles. The aisle walls have 6
triplets of tall stepped lancets between buttresses. The
chancel has 2 bays with single lancets on the south side and a
triplet of tall stepped lancets at the east end, each under a
separate hoodmould. At the east end of the south aisle is a
2-light window with plate tracery of 2 trefoiled lancets below
a quatrefoil.
The steeple has a square tower of 2 stages, with clasping
buttresses and a stair turret projecting from its north-west
corner. Above the level of the aisle it is octagonal, and each
face of the belfry stage has a pair of trefoiled sub-arches
set under a heavily-moulded 2-centred arch; on the cardinal
faces the sub-arches have louvres. The spire is octagonal,
with 2 tiers of lucarnes on the cardinal faces, a finial and
an iron cross.
INTERIOR: the galleries on the north, south and west sides are
carried on quatrefoil cast-iron columns with brackets above
the capitals; a second tier of columns above the panelled
front of the galleries supports an arcade-plate from which the
roof trusses spring; in both nave and aisles these have
scissor-beams and kingposts, 2 purlins and windbraces, all of
thin cross section. The tall chancel arch (of 1852) is deeply
moulded and carried on 2 orders of ringed shafts; the triple
lancets of the east window are deeply splayed and also have
ringed shafts and a linked hoodmould. The roof has
closely-spaced and thin trusses, in which the arched braces,
joined at their head by a sort of collar purlin, are arranged
to give a pointed trefoil outline.
HISTORY: the church was established after disputes about the
services at the Parish Church of St Mary (qv), and was built
by subscription. A district was assigned to it in 1844, and it
was consecrated in 1845.

Listing NGR: SD4775361424

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St Thomas' Church, Lancaster at Wikipedia
• St Thomas' Church, Lancaster official website
• Wikidata Q7595532

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)