The Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury is an active Anglican parish church situated in the City of Chester, in an area of the city informally known as "The Garden Quarter", a densely populated area, close to the University. The church was built in 1872, but the parish of St. Oswald which it serves is much older, dating back to about 980 AD. One of the earliest references to St. Oswald's can be found in Bradshaw's. The parish registers date back to 1580. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building

In 1868 the growing population of the parish led to the decision to build a chapel of ease, and land was obtained from the Dean & Chapter in Parkgate Road. The cornerstone was laid on 6 April 1869 by H.C. Raikes (MP for Chester) with the west end of the building bricked up to facilitate extension when circumstances permitted. The new chapel, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, was consecrated on 4 April 1872 by William Jacobson, Bishop of Chester. Licence for the solemnization of marriages in St Thomas' church was granted on 3 March 1877. Services there included holy communion at least once a month on Sundays and on saints' days, as well as morning and evening prayer. In 1880 the parishioners responded to the suggestion of the Dean and Chapter, first made in 1868, and agreed to surrender their rights in the south transept of the cathedral and make St. Thomas's the parish church. Christmas Day 1881 was the final service in the south transept of the Cathedral.

St. Thomas's opened as the parish church in 1881 with between 190 and 250 communicants. Services then included a weekly communion, held in the early morning or at midday. 

The dedication of the Church was chosen to be St. Thomas, because during the Middle Ages there was a Chapel dedicated to St. Thomas not far from the present site of the church. A chapel dedicated to St. Thomas Becket stood by 1200 in the graveyard belonging to St. Werburgh's abbey outside the Northgate, in the fork of the later Parkgate and Liverpool roads. Serving also as the meeting place for the abbot's manor court of St. Thomas, it became a private house called Green Hall after the Dissolution. The building probably survived only until the demolition of the northern suburbs during the Civil War siege, though in 1821 it was claimed that the former chapel was still in use as a barn. Today on the site is the pub The George & Dragon.

The church of St. Thomas of Canterbury as built between 1869 and 1872 by Sir George Gilbert Scott had a chancel with a south aisle and an aisled nave of three bays, all in an Early English style. On becoming the parish church in 1881, the church was enlarged to the designs of J. O. Scott (younger son of George Gilbert Scott) with a faculty being granted giving permission to enlarge the nave and aisle by adding two bays and erecting a porch on the north side; to build a tower and place a clock and bells therein; to place a pulpit, reredos, and sedilia in the church; to remove and re-erect the font at the west end of the church; to construct a heating apparatus; to construct an organ chamber and two vestries for the use of the clergy and choir; to place new seats for use of the choir and seat the whole of the church with open seats; to place stained glass in all the windows (with a spire which was never completed).

In 1896 permission was given to re-seat the chancel with oak seats and desks for the choir and clergy, cost of clergy seats to be defrayed by Henry John Birch and John Shenton Latham, churchwardens, cost of choir seats out of a legacy of £100 bequeathed by the late Miss Eliza Ann Ward and by voluntary contributions. 

The Reredos in the Sanctuary, which was installed in 1909, was by the architect Charles Deacon (1844–1927) as a memorial of Rev E C Lowndes, and is carved with the Instruments of the Passion. Atop which are four statues of archangels Michael Gabriel Raphael and Uriel. The wooden high altar (in the sanctuary) is decorated with three painted panels, featuring: the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Visitation. 

In the south aisle there is an Altar to St. Oswald & St. Thomas with a Triptych of St. Oswald and St. Thomas of Canterbury which was dedicated on All Saints Day 2005 in memory of Irene Waller and a wooden desk in memory of Ernest Waller containing a book with the names of the faithful departed. The tower clock was erected as a thank offering for the birth of Beatrice Mary Latham by her parents John and Almeida Latham, Christmas 1913. The clock was installed by J.B. Joyce and Co from Whitchurch, Shropshire.

Established in 1895 the mission church of the Good Shepherd on South View Road in the western part of the parish. In the early 1910s the congregation at the mission church usually numbered 50–80, ten or twenty of whom were communicants, but services were cut back in 1918 and discontinued in 1919. The mission church was also home to the Sealand Road C. of E. Infants' school. Sealand Road Infant School was opened in January 1883 in the Mission Church of the Good Shepherd, attached to St. Oswald's parish, in South View, off Tower Wharf. It was forced to close in December 1921 because the managers were unable to carry out structural repairs.

From 1948 onwards the Vicar of St Oswald's Parish was priest in charge of the church of Little St John alias St John without the Northgate, and in 1967 the two benefices were officially united to become The united benefice of St Oswald with Little St John, Chester. In 1969 Little St John's church ceased to be used for church services when a faculty was granted confirming a lease by the owners, the City Municipal Charities Trustees, to Chester Corporation, for secular use. 

St. Oswald's Parish was incorporated in the new parish of Chester in 1972, St. Thomas of Canterbury remaining in use as one of four churches serving the parish. The Parish name of Saint Oswald was lost at the formation of the Chester Team Parish, which grouped all the parish churches in the City of Chester into one single parish. On 1 March 2005 Chester Team Parish was dissolved into two new parishes. The new Parish is called Saint Oswald and Saint Thomas of Canterbury, which restores the ancient Patron Saint of the Parish and incorporates the patron of the parish church.

The former red brick vicarage and attached parish room were built to serve the parish of St Oswald and the church of St Thomas of Canterbury in 1880 to a design by John Douglas. The building now houses the English Department of The University of Chester.