By the time he designed St Thomas', William Howard Seth Smith was the architect of the Wonersh Congregational Chapel (now the United Reform Church) in 1880, the place of worship for both the Seth Smiths and the Unwin family.
Seth Smith’s design shares features used by contemporary architects. Voysey's "Little Holmes" in Kendal (1890s), the Voysey Studio (1891) and Broad Leys in Windermere (1898) share similar window design and over-hanging gables and buttresses. There are similarities with Baillie Scott‘s Onchon Village Hall built in 1897-8, an example of a public building featuring a lantern similar to Seth Smith’s design placed on the roof as an architectural feature.