Description

SD 70 NW,
1664/9/10020

FARNWORTH,
ASHWORTH STREET (North side),
Church of St Thomas

II

Parish church. 1877-79, by J S Rawson, a local architect. Built by Coop Bros. of Bolton. Declared redundant late C20.
Rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings and state roofs with patterned red ridge tiles. Early English style.
Chancel with apse, organ chamber and vestry, nave with aisles, north and south porches. Plinth and chamfered eaves throughout. Coped gables.
Chancel has cusped east window, and side windows with plate tracery, all with pointed arches, with sill band and linked hood mould. To south, gabled organ chamber, and in the return angle, a hipped porch with shouldered door. Vestry, 2 bays, has half-hipped through-eaves dormers, each with a plain double lancet. Plain single lancet in west gable. Nave has 6 bays divided by buttresses, each bay having 2 pointed arched clerestorey windows under a linked hoodmould. Coped side watt stack at east end. West gable has angle buttresses and a short central buttress. 5-light west window with hoodmould, and above it, brackets for a bell. North aisle, 6 bays, and south aisle, 5 bays, have buttresses, and in each bay a 2-light pointed arched window with plate tracery. North and south porches have buttressed pointed arched doorways with multiple chamfering and hood moulds. Board doors have blind tracery in their heads.

INTERIOR: Rendered. Chancel has moulded polychrome arch without responds, and hood mould. Single lancet opening to south. Boarded vault and half-dome with moulded ribs on corbels and watt shafts. Windows have pointed arched openings with linked hood mould. East window has stained glass, 1896, and south east window stained glass cl900. Wooden memorial reredos with triptych, c1907. North side has a moulded blind arch, and south side has a similar arched opening to the organ chamber. The organ, chancel and altar rails have been removed.
Nave has arcades with polychrome octagonal piers, 6 bays, and enriched moulded arches with hood moulds. Boarded wagon roof with moulded ribs on watt shafts. Clerestorey has wrought iron tamp brackets between each pair of windows. Similar brackets on the west wall. At the rear, a full-width screen with leaded glazing and diagonal match boarding, and a central opening under a traceried gable. The screen is linked to matching screens and doors to the porches. Narrow aisles have double-chamfered cross-arches. Vestry has original joinery, segment headed fireplaces in
chamfered stone surround, and other original fittings.
FITTINGS: Octagonal stone font, C14 style, with plain base, stem with quadruple shafts, and elaborately traceried bowl with pointed arched pendants. Octagonal wooden pulpit and steps, partly demolished, on octagonal stone stem. Panelled benches, and choir stalls with blind tracery.
MEMORIALS: War memorial tablet, and Roll of Honour in wooden case, 1919. Bronze and marble memorial tablet, 1897.

Listing NGR: SD7331405920

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26639490

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

• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
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  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)