---
title: "St Thomas a Becket, Salisbury"
description: "Located in Salisbury, Wiltshire. Built Founded c.1220; largely rebuilt 15th century; tower c.1400. Diocese of Salisbury. Grade I. Perpendicular style."
category: "Church"
tags: ["Church","Church of England","Wiltshire","Salisbury","Grade I","Perpendicular","Doom painting","Thomas Becket"]
canonical: "https://thebritishgazette.com/post/st-thomas-becket-salisbury"
pubDate: "2026-09-06T02:37:08.924Z"
dateModified: "2026-09-07T14:54:23.873Z"
location: "Salisbury, Wiltshire"
country: "England"
county: "Wiltshire"
town: "Salisbury"
address: "St Thomas Square, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 1BA"
postcode: "SP1 1BA"
built: "Founded c.1220; largely rebuilt 15th century; tower c.1400"
architect: "G. E. Street (chancel furnishings, mid 19th century)"
denomination: "Church of England"
dedications: ["Thomas"]
diocese: "Salisbury"
grade: "I"
style: "Perpendicular"
materials: "Stone, part plastered"
website: "http://www.stthomassalisbury.co.uk/"
openingHours: "The church is open from 9am until dusk almost every day."
parish: "Salisbury St Thomas and St Edmund"
listEntryUrl: "https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1273123"
gridReference: "SU 143 299"
accessNotes: "Level access to the main areas"
---

# St Thomas a Becket, Salisbury

St Thomas’s is the Grade I parish church of central Salisbury, Wiltshire, dedicated to Thomas Becket, a fifteenth-century Perpendicular rebuilding famous for its doom painting, in the Diocese of Salisbury.

## Overview

Historic England records the church as the parish church of New Sarum, probably founded in 1220, enlarged in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with a tower of about 1400 and a substantial fifteenth-century rebuild. The listing describes a picturesque stone building, part plastered, with the tower in an almost detached position and bells formerly from the cathedral belfry. The present church was rebuilt at the expense of Salisbury’s merchants. The parish is Salisbury St Thomas and St Edmund.

Above the chancel arch is a large mid-to-late fifteenth-century Last Judgement, one of the most complete surviving English doom paintings. It was whitewashed in 1593, uncovered and heavily retouched by Clayton and Bell in 1881, and restored again, most recently in 2019. The parish church describes the building as Perpendicular Gothic. Mid-nineteenth-century work in the chancel is by G. E. Street, including sanctuary walls, alabaster reredos, stalls and stone pulpit. Pevsner called the interior “sumptuous”. Other fittings include fifteenth-century paintings in the Lady Chapel and a Samuel Green organ once presented to the cathedral by George III.

## Further Information

- [St Thomas’s, Salisbury](https://stthomassalisbury.co.uk/)
- [Historic England list entry 1273123](https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1273123)
- [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Thomas%27s_Church,_Salisbury)