Description

SJ 84 SW WHITMORE C.P. BUTTERTON

6/173 Church of St Thomas

II*

Parish church. 1844, by Thomas Hopper. Sandstone ashlar on chamfered
plinth with fishscale tile roofs; Lombard frieze throughout. Romanesque
style; cruciform in plan with squat spire to tower; south-east vestry.
Buttressed nave in 2 bays, round-headed windows with nook shafts, west
door in similar style. Tower: rising one stage above nave; narrow
round-headed windows to belfry, 2 to each face; moulded parapet;
octagonal stair turret lit by 2 narrow round-headed openings at north-
west corner; squat octagonal spire with one tier of 4 gabled lucarnes.
Transepts: both in one bay; windows in gable ends both of 2 round-
headed lights, also with nook shafts, that on south with doorway beneath.
Short chancel of only one bay; East window a triplet of round-headed
lights. Flat-roofed vestry on south side with entrance through round-
headed doorway on east. Interior: rather plain but largely unaltered.
Plastered panelled roofs and rib vault with foliated boss to tower;
fittings and furnishings of 1844 including Romanesque-style wooden
pulpit, brass altar rails to raised semi-circular sanctuary with carved
reredos (angels blowing trumpets over a foot long), benches to nave
and box pews to transepts; at the north-west corner of nave a screened-
off baptistery, raised encaustic tiled floor (separated from nave by a
low brass rail) with a small trefoil-shaped Byzantine-style font on a triplet of red marble columns. Stained glass of late C19/early C20.
Monuments: memorials on east wall of south transept to Mary Milbourne
Swinnerton (died 1854 and co-founder of the church) with a kneeling
female figure; also to her son, Sir William Milbourne Milbourne
Swinnerton Pilkington (died 1855) with a draped urn; both by G. Lewis
and Co. of Cheltenham. The church was built at the expense of Sir William
Pilkington of nearby Butterton Hall (now demolished) and stands alone
in a field. B.O.E., Pp.91-2; Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary
of British Architects, 1600-1840 (1978), p.434.

Listing NGR: SJ8318942242

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17544865

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

• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)