Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

A parish church of limestone and granite rubble with ashlar work and leaded roofs, originally of the early 13th century with substantial later 13th-century work and 15th-century additions. The tower was rebuilt in 1762 and the building underwent conservative restoration in 1887–88.

The church comprises a west tower, nave with two aisles and clerestory, and chancel.

The four-stage west tower, largely rebuilt in 1762 and dated on its parapet, displays banded limestone and granite with ashlar dressings and moulded string courses. The second stage contains an oculus, a lozenge-shaped light with quatrefoil above; the top stage features elegantly elongated paired foiled lights serving the bell chamber. An embattled parapet with angle pinnacles and fleurons crowns the tower.

The 15th-century south aisle is built of coursed and squared granite rubble. Its doorway has a hollow chamfered four-centred arch with slight ogee. Three-light windows follow late Decorated forms. The clerestory, of less well coursed rubble with ashlar parapet, contains ornate paired foiled lights with ogee heads set in squared openings. A vestry occupies the angle where aisle and chancel meet.

The 15th-century chancel is of ashlar with an embattled parapet continuing across its shallow pitched east gable. It features a moulded string course and slim pilaster buttresses. The north and south 3-light windows have richly moulded architraves and panel tracery; the 4-light east window's tracery lines are linked by horizontal bars. A small priests' doorway beneath the south-west chancel window is finished with moulded architrave and hood mould.

The late 13th-century north aisle is of random limestone rubble. Its 2-light east window contains plate tracery; other windows are Victorian renewals in Decorated style. The north porch is half-timbered on a high stone plinth and incorporates two cambered tie beams from a 15th-century structure, springing from moulded braces and crowned with flat foliate bosses.

The interior west tower arch belongs to the late 13th or early 14th century, with semi-octagonal responds supporting a double-chamfered archway beneath a higher arch lacking capitals or division between respond and arch.

The nave arcades contain three bays. The north arcade, the earlier, dates to the later 13th century and features cylindrical shafts with simple capitals supporting double-chamfered arches. The south arcade, probably late 14th century, is taller, with arches carried on slender octagonal shafts; these arches are double-chamfered with the outer chamfer having a moulded stop above cavetto moulding to the capital.

The chancel arch, also of the 13th century, is a wide graceful span set slightly off-centre to the east nave wall. Its cylindrical responds carry nailhead decoration in the capitals. A doorway to the rood stair and an upper door to the loft survive to the north. A small cusped piscina is set in the south aisle.

The nave roof features 15th-century cambered tie beam trusses, moulded with central foliate bosses; however, the purlins and ridge piece are 19th-century renewals. A wooden chancel screen of 1927 occupies the chancel, where the north-west window now opens onto the vestry but retains its tracery as a stone screen. Two corbel beasts' heads from an earlier roof survive. The present chancel roof is early Victorian.

Stained glass includes fine 15th-century fragments in the chancel's north-east and south-east windows, set into a simple 19th-century design of floral motifs, portraying animated figures and angels swinging censers. The east window contains glass of 1898 in a painterly style representing the childhood of Christ with various English saints in the smaller upper lights. The north aisle's east and north-east windows hold a war memorial of around 1920: the north-east window shows St Michael, St George and Christ in a traditional architectural setting with jewelled colours, while the east window adopts a more pictorial approach, its main light showing the raising of the widow of Nain's son with two images below representing grace and mercy, juxtaposing First World War soldiers with images of Christ. The west tower window of 1899 depicts Samuel and David in Renaissance style with angels in the upper lights. The south-east window of the south aisle, dated 1902 in Renaissance style, shows scenes from the life of Mary Magdalen and incorporates a portrait bust of Mary Wright, whom it commemorates.

Two pairs of 17th-century alabaster tombs flank the altar. On the right is the tomb of Francis Staresmore, died 1626, erected by his widow in 1631. The tomb chest features a draped surface carrying a stiff recumbent effigy in partly painted armour, the feet pointing east with a shield of arms as a plate against the east wall. In high relief on the chest are effigies of his eight children—three girls and five boys—named on their own inscription plate, two depicted in their cradles. To the north is the tomb of his widow Frances, died 1657, also of alabaster and similar style, though the figure is wrapped in its shroud with only heraldic emblems adorning the base.

The church contains a Victorian font and pulpit.