BUILDING HISTORY When the Norman church at Thurlbear first stood complete soon after the year 1100, it had no neighbours that could rival it in scale. For although there is evidence in several parishes nearby of churches which rose during the 12th century, only Thurlbear's new church was dignified with aisles. Slender Norman arcades dividing the nave and aisles survive as the most impressive features of the present building, and are almost without parallel in West Somerset. It is likely that the Norman church was cruciform in plan, possessing transepts, north and south, whose entrance arches have left some trace at the west end of the chancel. The design may well have been completed by a central tower; but if that was so, all sign of the tower has gone, together with the evidence of much other Norman work which once existed. the plain Norman font does survive as a conspicuous reminder of the 12th century church, as does a portion of a Norman window, incorporated in one of the lancets of the chancel's north wall. And at the end of the south aisle is a plain arched recess also belonging to the early history of the building. It evidently marks the former site of a side-altar and may originally have been balanced by a similar structure in the north aisle. A hagioscope or squint, pierced through the recess, allowed an assistant priest to see the elevation of the host when Mass was celebrated within the chancel. Although the chancel was probably lengthened during the 13th century, not until the 15th century was the character of the Norman church substantially altered. New windows for chancel and nave, a new south porch, and a west tower built of local limestone, were additions typical of those made to many Somerset churches at that period. But the modesty of the new work at Thurlbear and the narrowing of the aisles which may have accompanied it, reflected a village reduced in size and prosperity. Extensive restoration in the 1850's demolished a surviving north transept, removed some of the chancel windows into the north aisle, and replaced them with imitation Norman lancets. Further work in 1861, chiefly confined to the repair of the fabric, added the pulpit and pews which remain today.

THE BELLS Remarkable among the church bells of Somerset, and of all England are the four medieval bells which hang in the tower at Thurlbear. They were cast in Exeter about the year 1450; and though no more is known of their maker than his initials 'i.t.', he was evidently the successor of Robert Norton. The tenor is thought to weigh 12 cwt. and like its three companions bears a rhyming Latin inscription in black letter. Only three other churches in England are known to possess rings of four medieval bells where all four are the work of a single maker and none has been recast. One church, St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield, has five such bells. By 1947 ringing had ceased at Thurlbear, owing to the decay of the ancient bell frame and the discovery of structual cracks in the tower. The explosion of a land-mine at Greenway Farm in 1941 is thought to have contributed to the damage. Major restoration of the fabric took place in 1956 during the incumbency of the Revd. Robert Jones; but his hopes of seeing the bells provided with a new frame lower in the tower went unfulfilled for lack of money. Only now, through the generosity of many people and the work of both professionals and volunteers, has that project been successfully completed. After their forty years' of silence, the bells which rang through the Reformation and the Civil War, which welcomed home the Portmans in 1833 and marked the signing of the Armistice, were rededicated on Trinity Sunday, 29th May, 1983.

MEMORIALS Of the few memorials which the church contains, the most interesting is the stained glass of the west window (maker unknown). It was placed there by Major William Surtees Altham in memory of his wife Henrietta Moulton Barrett who died at Stoke Court, Stoke St. Mary, in November 1860. Henrietta Moulton Barrett's life mirrored in many ways that of her elder sister, the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, both women growing to middle age under the influence of a father who forbade all thoughts of marriage on threat of disinheritance. Part of the window depicts the story of Rachel and Jacob, a subject evidently chosen by Major Eltham as a parable of his long courtship and his wife's early death. Their graves are in the south-east corner of the churchyard. A tablet on the north wall of the chancel commemorates an 18th century rector Thomas Haydon (d.1754), and Edmund Rack in the 1780's recorded that as inscribed slab in the chancel floor marked the burial place of John Colby, gent (d.1689), Robert Bryant (d.1729), and other families.

THE CHURCHYARD The churchyard contains a fine cross, whose shaft and socket are probably of 15th century date. To the south of the church stands the manor house (Church Farm) and to the north is a Tudor building usually identified as the tithe barn. Part of it however may once have served as the church house - an early form of village hall - which in 1611 was home for Agnes Gard, 'a poore woman of little creditt', and 25 years later was reported to be out of repair. To the east, the fields run down into the hollow of the hill, and then, on the slope of newly-rising ground, the ancient woods begin.

THE CHURCH TODAY By the early 1980's, the small congregation of St, Thomas's church found the maintenance needs of the building increasingly burdensome, and on 1st November 1988 the church was declared redundant. It was vested in the Redundant Churches Fund (now The Churches Conservation Trust) and repair of the fabric, under the direction of Mr. John Schofield, began in the following year. The work revealed much about the early development of the building and confirmed its status as one of the principal Norman parish churches of the West Country.

Sources: Tom W. Mayberry, 'St. Thomas's Church, Thurlbear, Somerset' (1998) Tom W. Mayberry, 'Thurlbear and its Church' (1983) R. A. Sixsmith, 'A History of Thurlbear' (1957)