Church of St Thomas the Martyr, Up Holland

The Church of St Thomas the Martyr stands in School Lane, Up Holland, Lancashire, on ground once occupied by a Benedictine priory. The present building mixes medieval fragments with later additions, its stone walls and slate roofs showing work from the 14th to the 19th centuries. A west tower of four stages rises above the entrance, its doorway carved with Tudor roses and figures. The nave has north and south aisles, each with 19th-century windows of reticulated tracery. A two-bay chancel was added by Basil Champneys in the 1880s, its crypt serving as a vestry. The church’s history begins in 1307 when Robert de Holland founded a college of thirteen priests. In 1319 the college became a Benedictine priory, the last such foundation in England, but it closed in 1536 during the Dissolution. Part of the priory church survived as a place of worship, and in 1882 Up Holland became a separate parish with St Thomas’s as its church. The interior was reordered in 1772 with galleries and box pews, later removed by Champneys, who also added the chancel and its crypt. Inside, quatrefoil piers support the arcades, and painted hatchments hang in each aisle. The south aisle holds a Commandment board and a piscina with a double basin, while the north aisle displays the Royal arms of George I. Fragments of medieval stained glass remain in a south window, and the chancel windows were designed by Henry Holiday in 1884 and 1903–04. Outside, the churchyard contains war graves from both world wars, and the remains of the priory to the south are protected as a scheduled monument.