Church Of St Nicholas

The Church of St. Nicholas is a parish church dating to 1868, designed by Austin and Johnson, and adapted from an earlier design by Dobson. It is constructed of squared stone with ashlar dressings, with Welsh slates and Lakeland slates on the south aisle, and features a red tile ridge cresting. The church comprises a four-bay aisled nave with a west tower and north porch, and a two-bay chancel with an organ chamber and vestry on the north side. The architectural style is Free 13th century.

The exterior exhibits stepped buttresses, a plinth, and a sill string. The nave has double and triple lancet windows on the north and south sides, along with two-light plate-tracery windows at the ends of the aisles. The gabled north porch has boarded double doors with scrolled ironwork within a moulded arch. The clerestory features sexfoiled circular windows. The tall, three-stage west tower includes a north-west stair turret, a two-light west window, and two-light bell openings within a multi-chamfered arch, below a carved cornice. A clockface is positioned on the west side of the second stage. The chancel has a wall arcade on the south side, above a high-set string, incorporating two two-light windows, angle buttresses, and a three-light plate-tracery east window. Set against the south wall is a headstone dating to 1776, depicting Dorothy Gillespy holding a book before an arrow and trumpet, with scrolled foliage at the sides and well-preserved lettering.

The interior nave arcades have pointed arches of two orders on round piers with foliage-carved caps in a late 12th-century style. A tall tower arch of two hollow-chamfered orders is present, as is a similar chancel arch, supported by paired columns, with a hood mould featuring headstops. An arch to the organ chamber, also on foliage-carved responds, is visible. A trefoil-headed aumbry is located in the chancel. The roofs feature arch-braced collar-beam trusses, with those in the nave resting on moulded corbels. There is a contemporary stone reredos depicting St. Cuthbert’s Cross and symbols of the evangelists. A rood loft from 1896 has pendant tracery. A Romanesque font with inlaid marble panels is accompanied by a smaller 18th-century font with a cable-moulded bowl on an octagonal shaft. A funeral hatchment from 1820, belonging to Adam Mansfield de Cardonnel-Lawson, is located in the south aisle. A memorial to George Henry Shum-Storey from 1869, featuring a marble sculpture of an angel and a cross, stands near the font. Windows by Cottier, dating from 1868, depict the wise and foolish virgins in the north and south aisles.

A medieval chapel of St. Nicholas, rebuilt in the late 17th century, originally stood at a location a short distance south of the present church.