Lancashire

Churches

A church of 1847-8 by Charles Hansom

The parish in which the church of St Thomas & St Elizabeth, Thurnham is located was founded in 1745 with Fr James Foster as the parish priest. Before that time travelling Catholic priests, including Rev. James Swarbrick, "The Riding Priest" had served the district. In 1785 Mr Dalton, owner of nearby Thurnham Hall, granted the usual seven acres (the glebe), for the priest's maintenance, and a plot of land for the house. Fr Foster began a building fund, and in 1802 the house and the shell of a chapel were completed. However, insufficient funds meant that it was not until 1818 that the chapel was finally opened.

The construction of the present church was inspired by Fr Foster's successor, Fr Thomas Crowe, who was appointed in 1824. Parish funds, donations, and the substantial support of Elizabeth Dalton of Thurnham Hall led to the foundation stone being laid on 18th March 1847. The church was built on the site of the earlier chapel, consecrated on 29th August 1848, and opened the following day.

The builder of St Thomas & St Elizabeth was George Taylor of Coventry, and the architect was Bristol-based Charles Francis Hansom (1817-1888). Hansom was the younger brother of Joseph Aloysius Hansom (1803-1882), inventor of the Hansom cab, founder of "The Builder", and architect of notable Catholic churches such as St Walburge's, Preston. During the period when St Thomas & St Elizabeth was built Charles Hansom practised alone. He later partnered his brother, his son, and a former pupil. During his career he built many churches, mainly Catholic, but also Anglican, as well as mansions, convents, colleges and schools.

At Thurnham Hansom designed a building that acknowledges the debate of the 1840s about historical accuracy in the use of Gothic forms. Externally his church is quite traditional - a nave with aisles and lower chancel, an offset west tower, and a south porch. The tower has a broach spire with lucarnes of the type seen in Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire. A stair turret breaks the symmetry on the south face. The two-light bell openings have plate tracery similar to that of the nave windows. The clerestory windows are small and circular with a quatrefoil. There are feature windows at the east and west ends of the aisles. These have three lights and tracery that leans on Early English precedent. The east window is of four lights with, in its head, three cusped shapes that feature elsewhere in the building as decorative motifs. A north door near the west end has a steep plain gable above. The building is of undressed stone, with cut stone around windows, buttresses and string courses.

Inside the church are four bay nave arcades with stone cylindrical piers, undercut plain capitals, and double chamfered arches above. At the west end is a gallery with supporting brackets and three openings with pointed arches below. These lead to a western narthex. The organ is in the gallery on the south wall. The chancel arch is filled by a rood screen, painted white with gold highlights. It has a doorway flanked by two openings at each side, all gabled, cusped and crocketed. Above Christ is flanked by two figures. The pulpit, located at the left of the screen, shares the same decorative motifs. These include quatrefoil panels of the same pattern as is found in the west window. Here they are filled with angels. The form of the screen is continued in the screen to the Lady Chapel.

Above the chancel arch is a wall painting of the Last Judgement. The church guide describes it as the "first of its kind in a Catholic Church since the Reormation." It is by H. Doyle of London, and shows the banished being turned away with swords and trumpets!

The chancel has three cusped sedilia with detached columns, and an adjoining piscina, all in the Early English style. Painted figures of (presumably) St Thomas and St Elizabeth gaze down from the north and south chancel walls. The chancel roof is painted and coffered.

The church guide states that the stained glass is by "Walles of Newcastle-on-Tyne (presumably Wailes), to designs by Hansom. This may be so. The usual Wailes monogram is absent, but so it might be in this instance. However, a crude WW can be seen on the south aisle west window, and there are similarities with Wailes' work.

In the churchyard, by the west door, is the large Gillow mausoleum. The stone cross outside the churchyard is from nearby Cockersands Abbey.

View from the north east

The church shows the architect being influenced by the move to archaeological correctness.

Nave looking east

The nave is separated from the chancel by a white and gold  painted rood screen.

Painting above chancel arch

The Last Judgement painted by H. Doyle of London.

South aisle stained glass

St Lucy and St Joseph. Who designed and made the windows? Was it Hansom and Wailes?

Gillow Mausoleum

The Egyptian-style tomb of the Lancaster family, apparently built in the 1830s.

Photographs and text © Tony Boughen