St. Thomas of Canterbury

Introduction

The principal elevation to St John's Street is of gault brick with rusticated quoins in Roman cement. The architect J. Arnold Crush was a pupil of Lutyens.

The Rosary is prayed at Saint Thomas's Church, Woodbridge, after the Friday morning Mass during the months of May and October. All couples are required to complete a marriage preparation course with the Diocese of East Anglia before their wedding.

Architecture and furnishings

The façade has three tall round-headed window openings with round hood moulds ending in square stops with raised lozenge details. The parapet has a raised rendered panel around the inscribed date 'AD MDCCCL'. The coffered ceiling is divided in squares by flat, shallow ribs. The nave seating consists of late C20 benches of a simple open backed design in unpainted timber.

The original simple timber dado panelling of the Mechanics' Institute survives on the side walls at the south end. The rest of the side walls have taller large-framed panels of 1929 in plaster which increase slightly in height at the north end to mark the sanctuary. At the rear of the altar is a panel painted 'Altare Privilegium', part of the 1930 arrangement. The font from the 1872 church on Crown Place stands in the lobby; it is an octagonal stone font on a moulded base with tracery decoration on all sides of the shaft and bowl. The sign above the High Altar, erected circa 1930, has lettering by Margaret Agnes Rope.

Music and liturgy

On Monday 7 July 1930 a solemn High Mass was celebrated in the newly furnished church by the Right Rev. Mgr. Duchemin, rector of the Beda College, Rome, in the presence of the Bishop of Northampton with the choir of Westminster Cathedral.