Church of St Cuthbert

Church of St Cuthbert

This Grade I listed church at Fishlake possesses work from the 12th to 15th centuries, though the majority dates from the 14th and 15th centuries. It is built in ashlar magnesian limestone with lead and Welsh slate roofs.

The church comprises a west tower, a five-bay nave with aisles, and a lower three-bay chancel with a south chapel and north organ chamber in continuation of the aisles. The architectural style is predominantly Decorated and Perpendicular.

The west tower is of four stages. It has a chamfered plinth and two moulded bands, with offset angle buttresses. The 13th-century west door features a pointed arch and hoodmould, set beneath a large transomed five-light window with cusped lights, traceried head and hoodmould. Above the south aisle are carvings of a bird and crown. The third stage contains a west niche with a statuette of St Cuthbert beneath a crocketed pinnacle. A string course runs below paired two-light belfry openings with louvres, hoodmoulds and dividing buttresses. An iron-faced west clock sits across the string course beneath an embattled parapet with eight crocketed pinnacles; gargoyles project to north and south.

The nave has a chamfered plinth and moulded band with offset buttresses between bays, the eastern buttresses being larger and gabled. A buttressed and gabled south porch with a restored outer doorway contains shafts and semicircular responds to a pointed arch with hoodmould. Within lies a remarkable 12th-century south door of four orders, heavily carved with foliage, heads, animals and figures. The nave windows include three-light examples, one against the tower with a Tudor-arched head and one to the right of the porch with a square head; another displays reticulated tracery with a pointed arch. A 13th-century west window to the south aisle has lancet lights beneath a carved hoodmould. The north aisle, with two bays rebuilt in thinly-coursed stone, contains a deeply-chamfered north door in a gabled portico set below a buttress, and tall square-headed windows with cusped heads, that to bay five displaying Decorated tracery. Both aisles feature an oversailing course beneath parapets with roll-moulded copings and west pinnacles. Tall Perpendicular clerestorey windows of three lights stand beneath pointed arches with hoodmoulds. A cavetto-moulded course with gargoyles runs beneath an embattled parapet with crocketed pinnacles and a cross to the east.

The chancel contains a 12th-century round-arched priest's door in a rubblework panel on the left, with a buttress to the right supporting a square-headed window of five ogee lights, above which are restored Perpendicular three-light windows. The south chapel in the aisle has a diagonal buttress with gargoyles and cusped five-light windows to south and east; the north organ chamber is similar. A Decorated east window of seven lights displays curvilinear tracery and a hoodmould. The north wall contains a blocked two-bay 13th-century arcade with a buttress across the eastern bay and a triangular-headed four-light window in the west bay.

The interior contains three treble-chamfered tower arches. The 13th-century aisle arcades feature circular piers and capitals to double-chamfered arches, with treble-shafted west responds and a south-east respond with shafts and a half-octagonal pier. The 15th-century nave roof retains one boss and traces of ceilure in the western bay. A 14th-century moulded chancel arch and quadrant-moulded west arches lead to the chapel and organ chamber; Tudor arches open into the chancel. A 13th-century arcade marks the former north chapel. The 15th-century chancel roof features cambered tie beams, penlins and a carved boss.

An octagonal 14th-century font stands on a two-step plinth with figure niches beneath canopies on each side; the wooden cover, probably of the 18th century, bears a bird finial. Most of the fittings date from the 19th century. An earlier rood screen with mullions and an ogee-headed opening survives. A Royal coat of arms inscribed "GR 1754" hangs near the north door.

Monuments include a large tomb chest against the chancel north wall to Richard Marshall (died 1505), with plinth and side panels carved with inscriptions and carvings of books, chalices, tools and scales, though no brass inlay remains. Nearby is a carved stone frame with an inscription to Robert Simpson (died 1704); opposite stands a broken-pedimented wall plaque to Reverend John Gibson (died 1768) and his wife Margaret (died 1759). Brasses in the south chapel commemorate Hannah Perkins (died 1669) and Richard Perkins (1673).