Church Of St Nicholas

MARKET HARBOROUGH

911/4/106 RECTORY LANE 25-JUL-52 LITTLE BOWDEN (West side) CHURCH OF ST NICHOLAS

GV II Anglican church. C13 and C14. Restored 1900-1901 by Bodley, who added the W end bellcote. S porch with memorial date of 1927, N with a date of 1928. Stone rubble with freestone dressings and lead roofs, tiled roof to chancel. The W end bellcote is ashlar masonry and there is extensive ashlar patching to the chancel, presumably by Bodley. Plan of nave, chancel, N aisle with NE chapel, SW vestry and N and S porches.

EXTERIOR: The nave, N aisle and vestry roofs are almost flat. Chancel with a 3-light Geometric Decorated E window with flat faces to the mullions and main moulding members, probably by Bodley. Similar 2-light S window. 2-square-headed clerestory windows to N side and one similar high-set window to the S side of the nave which is of 1901 as is the other large nave window below. Shallow gabled S porch to the nave with a segmental-headed arch to the outer doorway. The NE chapel has a large medieval Decorated E window with reticulated tracery one buttress, a large lancet to the E and Perpendicular square-headed 3-light windows flanking the N porch, the eastern of the two windows uncusped. The deep SW vestry of 1901 has a 2-light square-headed C19 S window with trefoil-headed lights. The W wall of the nave shows the scar of a previous steeper roofline. The Bodley bellcote descends to the ground and has a single tall round-headed W window and a pair of gabled bell openings, side-by-side, with ogee arches.

INTERIOR: Plastered and painted. Moulded chancel arch on shafts. 3-bay C14 N arcade with double-chamfered arches on quatrefoil piers with finely-moulded capitals. C19 roofs. The nave roof is Perpendicular nave roof, very shallow-pitched. The trusses are tie beam with short king posts with short curved braces onto moulded stone corbels. The nave roof is painted red, black and white with busy chevrons on the rafters. Boarded wagon roof to the chancel with slender transverse ribs. The ribs and wallplate are painted red, black and gold, the boarding is white. The aisle roof has moulded rafters and a purlin and curved braces and is painted white. There is a tie beam across the chancel with gilded cresting. The chancel has c. early C20 black and white paving and a timber panelled reredos with a memorial date of 1924. Good early C20 choir stalls with a crested canopied dado on the S side. The NE chapel has a moulded tomb recess. Polygonal timber pulpit , the sides decorated with quatrefoils and a low frieze of blind tracery. C19 font with circular bowl on a quatrefoil stem with moulded capital. Nave benches have square-headed ends with sunk panels. Many C19 wall plaques. Late C19 and early C20 stained glass.

Sources Pevsner, Leicestershire and Rutland, 1984 edn., 311-312.