Church of St Nicholas is a Grade II listed building in the Harborough local planning authority area, England. First listed on 25 July 1952. Church.

Church of St Nicholas

WRENN ID
former-lime-weasel
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Harborough
Constituency
Harborough, Oadby and Wigston MP: Neil O'Brien (Con)
Country
England
Date first listed
25 July 1952
Type
Church
Address
Church of St Nicholas, Rectory Lane
OS grid reference
SP 740 869
Coordinates
52.47547, -0.91147
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Church of St Nicholas is an Anglican church dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries, with a restoration in 1900-1901 by Bodley, who added the west end bellcote. Stone rubble construction features freestone dressings and lead roofs, with a tiled roof over the chancel. Extensive ashlar patching to the chancel is attributed to Bodley, and the bellcote is constructed of ashlar masonry. The church comprises a nave, chancel, a north aisle with a northeast chapel, a southwest vestry, and north and south porches.

Architecturally, the nave, north aisle, and vestry roofs are almost flat. The chancel features a three-light Geometric Decorated east window with flat faces to the mullions, likely a Bodley addition, alongside a similar two-light south window. The nave has two square-headed clerestory windows to the north and one similar high-set window to the south. A shallow gabled south porch has a segmental-headed arch to the outer doorway. The northeast chapel includes a large medieval Decorated east window with reticulated tracery, a buttress, a large lancet window to the east, and Perpendicular square-headed three-light windows flanking the north porch; the eastern of these windows lacks cusping. The deep southwest vestry, dating to 1901, has a two-light square-headed 19th-century south window with trefoil-headed lights. The west wall of the nave reveals the outline of a previous steeper roofline. The bellcote extends to the ground and incorporates a tall round-headed west window and a pair of gabled bell openings with ogee arches.

Internally, the church is plastered and painted. A moulded chancel arch sits on shafts. A three-bay 14th-century north arcade presents double-chamfered arches resting on quatrefoil piers with finely-moulded capitals. The church contains 19th-century roofs, including a shallow-pitched Perpendicular nave roof with tie beams, short king posts, short curved braces onto moulded stone corbels, painted red, black, and white with decorative chevrons on the rafters. The chancel is covered by a boarded wagon roof with slender transverse ribs and a wallplate, painted red, black, and gold, with white boarding. The aisle roof features moulded rafters, a purlin, curved braces, and a white painted finish. The chancel includes c.1924 black and white paving and a timber-panelled reredos. Good early 20th century choir stalls, crested and canopied, are located on the south side. The northeast chapel has a moulded tomb recess. A polygonal timber pulpit is decorated with quatrefoils and a low frieze of blind tracery. The 19th-century font has a circular bowl on a quatrefoil stem with a moulded capital. Nave benches have square-headed ends with sunk panels. Numerous 19th-century wall plaques are present, alongside late 19th and early 20th century stained glass.

Local climate

Church of St Nicholas receives an average of 740 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 74% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 78% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 38 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 71% of listed buildings. Of these, 19 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

Sign in or create a free account to unlock:

  • No EPC on record for this property
  • No sale records on file
  • No related consent applications matched
  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Create free account

Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.

Similar buildings

The closest matches to this building from all 493,000 UK listed buildings, by architecture, period and materials.

Nearby listed buildings

  1. War Memorial 1914 to 1918 War in Churchyard of Church of St Nicholas Grade II 17 m
  2. The Rectory Grade II* 58 m
  3. Cherry Tree Inn Grade II 85 m
  4. Manor House Grade II 115 m
  5. 17 and 19, Kettering Road Grade II 124 m
  6. The Chestnuts Grade II 152 m
  7. Little Bowden Post Office and Stores Grade II 195 m
  8. Original North West Building at Harborough Rubber Works Grade II 327 m
  9. The Settling Rooms Grade II 346 m
  10. The Lodge Grade II 408 m