Church
of St Thomas a Becket, Salisbury, Wiltshire
Click on photos to enlarge
Information and quotes in italics from Wiltshire by Nikolaus Pevsner
Revised by Bridget Cherry (1975)
Yale University Press, New Haven and London |
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The Doom,
early 16th century.
Description further down the page. |
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The church is all 15th century or
later (with just two exceptions visible inside the chancel aisles,
mentioned below).
The tower comes first. ... originally stood detached from the nave. It was under construction in
1400-5. ... The tower is on four stages and has set-back buttresses. ...
Three-light blocked window into the present S aisle. Two-light Perp
bell-openings. Panelled battlements and a small recessed lead-covered
pyramid roof.
C.1450 the chancel was rebuilt and the chancel chapels added. (Only
top of chancel visible here. Interiors below.). |
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Nave and aisles were rebuilt soon after. The aisles have
four-light windows. The clerestory windows are wide, low, and of four
lights. Three-centred arches. Battlements. W doorway with two-centred arch
and traceried spandrels. Renewed great W window of seven lights with a
transom. The aisles are nearly as wide as the nave, and the tower thus
became attached to the S aisle. In the end the church, except for the
tower, was a complete parallelogram. |
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Sumptuous interior. Five-bay arcades.
Thin piers with foliage capitals. The piers have a section of four shafts
and four waves in the diagonals. Two-centred arches. Panelling round the
clerestory. Shafts rise
from the piers to help carry the timber roof. Capitals with foliage and
shields. Tall chancel arch. |
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Panelling also on the W wall round the doorway.
Extremely ornate and dainty nave roof, of Somerset
type. Low pitch, tie-beams with cresting and inverted cresting below.
Traceried arched braces. Tracery above the tie-beams and on the wall
plate.
PAINTING. Above
the chancel arch Doom, early C16, heavily overpainted. ... Above on the l.
the rising of the dead, on the r. the fate of the damned and the mouth of
hell. At the top Christ on the
rainbow, the Virgin and St John, saints below, and a town l. and r., the
most interesting part of the composition. |
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In 1447 the chancel collapsed. Rebuilding began at once, at
the expense of the rich merchants of Salisbury. The chancel E window is of
five lights with a transom and panel tracery (probably largely Victorian:
RCHM) ... two rows of large figures, 1857, designed by Alfred Bell,
made by Lavers (R.Hubbuck). ... |
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The panelling of the E walls
of chancel and chapels is Victorian. |
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Broad simple arches from the (nave)
aisles into the
chapels. They also have foliage capitals. ... The chancel chapel E windows are of four and five lights ...
Records are preserved telling us that William Swayne built the S chapel.
That gives a date c.1450. ... Very low pitch, almost flat. ... The N
chapel was built at the same time (not shown). ...
Reredos in the S chapel. 1724.
Of wood, in the Wren style. ... |
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The arcades of four bays are
identical (between chapels and chancel). Slender piers with four shafts and four hollows. Four-centred
arches. ... Here one can see the 13th century corbel-table of the
earlier chancel. Also the west respond of the south chapel looks late
13th century.
PAINTING. On the N wall of the S chapel Annunciation, Visitation,
Nativity, rather primitive. The little emblems include the Garter and may
refer to Bishop Beauchamp (1450-8), chaplain and later chancellor of the
Garter. |
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Monuments in the South Aisle. Thomas Eyre, died 1628, with
wife and children, kneeling figures in the usual way. To the l. and r. big
obelisks.
Christopher Eyre, died 1628, and wife. Also kneeling figures. |
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St
Thomas Website |
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