Wycliffe Reform Church

The Wycliffe Reform Church, built around 1860, is a Free Norman style building in Alfreton, Derbyshire. It is constructed of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings, and has a banded blue and green slate roof with crested ridge tiles and stone coped gables, ornamented with dogtooth details. The church comprises a five-bay nave and a single-bay chancel, each with east and west aisles. The western aisle includes a tower to the north.

The north elevation, facing the street, features a gabled nave with three semicircular-headed windows, each with a roll-moulded arch on scalloped capitals, with the nookshafts now missing, and with hoodmoulds and a continuous raised impost band. Above, two semicircular-headed roll-moulded lights are set within a larger semicircular-headed opening. A pilaster buttress rises to a square stone cupola with arcaded sides, corner shafts and a pyramidal roof. To the east of the nave is an aisle with a three-order semicircular-headed doorcase, featuring a trefoil inner arch and two roll-moulded arches on volute capitals and nookshafts. Another pilaster buttress is topped by a pinnacle. The four-stage tower to the west features a semicircular-headed doorcase of three orders on nookshafts with volute capitals. The stonework above the doorcase is corbelled, with the sides forming short pilaster buttresses. The second stage has a recessed central panel with a carved frieze above and a central circular window. The third stage has paired semicircular-headed windows below roll-moulded arches on carved consoles. The fourth stage has continuous arcades of semicircular-headed dogtooth arches on nookshafts with volute capitals, except for square piers at the corners. All openings are below rubble relieving arches. The building’s other sides are largely hidden by other structures, except for the eastern clerestory, which has a rose window to the north and four triple semicircular-headed windows to the south, separated by pilaster buttresses.

Inside, the church has a five-bay arcade to the east and a four-bay arcade to the west, each with moulded semicircular arches on quatrefoil piers with waterleaf or foliage capitals. The clerestory windows have chamfered arched surrounds with carved capitals to the nookshafts and a moulded sill band. Similar surrounds are found on the north gable windows. The roof is corbelled and arched braced. The interior contains plain late 19th-century fittings.