Listed Building record MDR13485 - St Thomas' Church, Chatsworth Road, Chesterfield

St Thomas' Church, Chatsworth Road, Chesterfield, built in 1830-1831. 'According to Kelly's Directory, the church of St. Thomas, New Brampton wes erected in 1831. It was a building of stone, consisting of chancel, nave and a western tower surmounted by four pinnacles and containing one bell; there are marble tablets to the Rev. Matson Vincent M. A. and the Rev. John Berridge Jebb M. A. first and second incumbents of this parish: a new chancel was erected in 1892, at a cost of £1,600, and in 1903 the church was restored and re-decorated, at a cost of £1,350, a font of marble and alabaster being erected at the same time: a new organ was provided in 1906 at a cost of £500: the church contains 600 sittings, half of which are free.' (1) From the National Heritage List for England: '908/13/32 CHATSWORTH ROAD 13-MAR-68 BRAMPTON (North side) CHURCH OF ST THOMAS II Parish church of 1830-31 by Woodhead & Hurst, with chancel 1888 by Naylor and Sale, restored 1903 by Adams. MATERIALS: Hammer-dressed gritstone in regular courses, freestone dressings, snecked rubble to organ chamber and north chancel wall, graded-slate roof. PLAN: Nave, lower and narrower chancel, south vestry, north organ chamber, west tower. EXTERIOR: Mainly in the plain Gothic style as favoured in the early C19. It has a narrow 3-stage west tower with angle buttresses and crowned by an embattled parapet with pinnacles. The tall west doorway has a broad chamfer and modern door, above which is a single-light window. The second stage has a south clock face, and roundel for a clock face on the west side. Pairs of 2-light bell openings have a transom formed by a broad quatrefoil frieze. The north-west vestry and south-west porch, flanking the tower, each has a 2-light window with intersecting cusped tracery. The north doorway is partly blocked and has an attached link to a modern church hall. The south door is modern but the tympanum is made up of blind Gothic tracery in wood. The 5-bay nave is buttressed, with big pinnacles rising from angle buttresses, and has a frieze of shields below the eaves. Three-light windows have intersecting cusped tracery. The chancel is Perpendicular style. It has a 5-light east window and two high-set 2-light south windows above the vestry. The vestry is dated 1963 on rainwater heads, but re-uses older masonry from nave and chancel walls. INTERIOR: The wide nave was designed to accommodate a 3-sided gallery, but any such structure has been removed. The 9-bay roof has boxed beams, and a bold stencilled scheme of Christian symbols and inscriptions added in the late C19. An oriel window in the west wall of the nave was built in commemoration of George V (1910-36). The porch has a painted and embossed roof in the same spirit as the nave. Chancel details are late C19. The chancel arch has an inner order on corbels, and has a 3-bay collar-beam roof on corbelled brackets. Corbels are painted with symbols of the Evangelists. Walls are plastered. The original nave floor is concealed beneath a raised modern floor. The chancel has a mosaic floor and floorboards below choir stalls. PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: Font, benches and pulpit have been removed from the nave. Choir stalls have shaped ends, open-arcaded frontals and panelled backs. One tier incorporates poppy heads to the ends, and the back row has a high-panelled back and canopy. The communion rail is probably C20, with wooden angel balusters. The sanctuary is panelled, and the war-memorial reredos has empty niches and wide central panel under an ogee head. The east window of c1891 shows the crucifixion. Other glass is late C19 or early C20, including SS Thomas, Cecilia and King David by Morris & Co (c1915). HISTORY: The church was built in 1830-31 by John Woodhead (d 1838) & William Hurst (1787-1844), architects of Doncaster, at a cost of £3013, with a grant of £2063 from the Church Commissioners. A new, larger, chancel was added in 1888 (date on foundation tablet) by the architects J.R. Naylor (1854-1923) and G.H. Sale (1857-1945). They also added the organ chamber. The church was restored in 1903 by Cole Adams. The south vestry was built in 1963. SOURCES: Pevsner, N., (revised E. Williamson), The Buildings of England: Derbyshire (1978), 150. Port, M H., Six Hundred New Churches (1961),142-43. REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St Thomas, Brampton, Chesterfield, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * The exterior retains the simple Gothic character that is typical of the early C19, which has not been unduly compromised by the later chancel and vestry. * Interior details of interest include the unusual richly painted nave roof. * The building well represents the churches built with parliamentary grants to serve expanding urban populations in the early C19.' (2)