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

• 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 Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
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  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair