The church opens
Designed by Laurence Booth in the Early English style and erected through the generosity of Thomas Openshaw of Primrose Hill, St Thomas was consecrated on 10 December.
Heritage in the service of hope
Built in stone.
Alive in faith.
A hundred and sixty years of a building, and of the people who have gathered in it, at the corner of Pimhole Road.
More than a landmark
A church raised for a town
shaped by cotton and hope.
In 1866, as Bury grew fast and grew hard, a new church rose near the corner of Rochdale Road and Pimhole Road.
It was never built merely to be admired. St Thomas was raised for the worship of God and for the practical good of the people who lived around it — and that is still the whole of the job description.
Milestones
A parish is formed
The parish of St Thomas was formed from parts of Bury and Prestwich. The first registers date from this year — the beginning of a written record of births, marriages and deaths that has run ever since.
National recognition
A century after it opened, St Thomas was added to the National Heritage List for England at Grade II, in recognition of its special architectural and historic interest.
Roch Valley together
The former parishes of St Thomas, St Peter and Holy Trinity came together as the Parish of Bury, Roch Valley — three congregations, one shared calling.
A season of renewal
The Diocese of Manchester announced a new partnership between the existing St Thomas congregation and a planting team led by the Revd Georgina Stirling, anticipated to begin in September. The church now tells its own story at stthomasbury.org.
What was handed on
Three things they
left in our care.
Buildings outlive the people who raise them. So do the practices that happen inside them — and those matter considerably more than the stone.
The living story
Not a museum.
A home for worship.
The best way to understand St Thomas is not to look around it, but to join the people who pray in it.
All this beauty is a frame for something greater: water at the font, scripture from the lectern, bread and wine at the table, friendship over coffee afterwards, and the good news of Jesus handed on from one generation to the next without ever being improved upon. That still happens here every week, and the church publishes when.
Sources & further reading
History,
carefully told.
Dates, names and details on this page are drawn from the public record. Service times and events change and are not kept here — the church publishes them at stthomasbury.org.