Parish Church Of St Botolph

Parish Church of St Botolph, Boston

This is a major parish church of the Perpendicular period. Work commenced on the chancel, nave and aisles in 1309, with completion by 1390. The tower was started around 1450 and completed in 1520. The church underwent restoration by Gilbert Scott in 1845, by George Place of Nottingham in 1851–53, and further restoration in 1929 by Sir Charles Nicholson. A nave altar was installed in 1978 by Ronald Sims. The building is constructed in ashlar with lead roofs.

The plan comprises a western tower with tall octagonal lantern (known as 'The Stump'), a nave with clerestorey, aisles, chancel, south porch and chapel, and a north vestry.

The tower is of three stages with stepped set-back buttresses, all decorated with panel tracery and crocketed pinnacles. It has a deeply moulded plinth with quatrefoil frieze, moulded offsets to each stage, blank tracery to all surfaces, and a castellated parapet. The tall octagonal lantern above features flying buttresses, a decorated parapet with ogee arches, and crocketed pinnacles at each angle. On all four sides of the middle stage are paired two-light double-height windows with pointed heads and crocketed ogees over. The belfry stage contains a single broad opening with a moulded pointed head, within which are pierced four-light bell openings. The south and north sides of the ground floor stage have tall double-height four-light windows with pointed heads and cusped tracery. The west side has a pair of doors with traceried heads set within a wide recessed doorway, featuring a cusped and crocketed ogee arch, seaweed tracery, and double-panelled spandrels. On either side are double-height blank statue niches with nodding ogees, all beneath a castellated and arcaded parapet. Above this rises a very large eight-light west window with cusped tracery and a continuously moulded pointed surround.

The north aisle has a moulded plinth and parapet with plain stepped buttresses topped by decorated gablettes, figures and pinnacles. At the west end is a fifteenth-century five-light window. The north side consists of seven bays with tall four-light windows displaying flowing tracery, hood moulds with human head stops. The second bay from the west has a doorway with pointed moulded surround and a fourteenth-century traceried door, above which sits a four-light traceried window. At each end of the north aisle stands a tall pinnacle with statue niche.

The clerestorey extends for fourteen bays with closely spaced two-light windows, a quatrefoil frieze to the parapet, and flat pilaster buttresses with decorated pinnacles containing statue niches, some with original carved figures. A battlemented stair tower occupies the west end. The north aisle's east window is of five lights with reticulated tracery, and the aisle end displays a pierced quatrefoil frieze to the parapet. The organ chamber and vestry extension, added by Sir Charles Nicholson, has a flat roof behind a parapet.

The chancel is of four bays with tall stepped buttresses topped by diamond-set tall pinnacles. It features a moulded plinth and panelled frieze to the parapet with lobed quatrefoils. Four windows of four lights are present, two with flowing tracery and two with Perpendicular tracery; the easternmost is partly blocked by the altar reredos. The east window, a work by George Place, contains seven lights with flowing tracery. The chancel and nave have a pierced gable parapet. The south side of the chancel consists of five bays similar to the north. Beneath the central window is a priest's doorway with ogee moulding over the pointed head, topped by a foliate pinnacle and flanked by statue niches with a castellated top.

The south aisle has a moulded plinth and wave-moulded parapet with tall panelled pinnacles bearing crocketed finials and statue niches. It comprises five bays with gabled stepped buttresses. The east window displays five lights with flowing tracery, and the south side features similar four-light windows.

The nave clerestorey on the south side is comparable to the north, though with alternating forms of flowing traceried windows.

The south porch is of two storeys with a parvise. Its buttresses display three tiers of niches and pinnacles. On the east side is a chimney stack with brattished top and side pinnacles. The south doorway is deeply moulded with thin moulded shafted reveals and a cusped moulded arch above. The gable contains a five-light four-centred arched window, and the parapet has a quatrefoil frieze and a sundial dated 1757.

Within the porch are side stone benches and half-engaged triple wall shafts. The inner doorway has three thin shafts and a moulded surround with a late fourteenth-century traceried door. Beyond the porch lies the three-bay Cotton Chapel with three-light reticulated traceried mullions and buttresses with gablettes. A choir vestry by Sir Charles Nicholson extends beyond, with a prominent turret pinnacle at the corner of the aisle.

Interior

The nave contains seven-bay tall arcades with quatrefoil piers having fillets, annular capitals and tall bases, supporting double moulded pointed arches with continuously linked moulded heads. A roll moulded string marks the base of the clerestorey, with a flower frieze at the head. The painted timber nave ceiling, dating to 1927 and executed by Sir Charles Nicholson, features moulded beams arranged in coffered formation with bosses at intersections. The tower arch is tall and continuously moulded with paint finish. The tower walls are arcaded, and at the top of the second stage is a star lierne vault by G G Pace, which uses the springers of an unexecuted medieval vault.

The chancel arch is broad and double moulded with pointed form, featuring quarter engaged responds and capitals. A small pointed doorway to the rood stairs is present, alongside a blocked upper door.

The south aisle has a moulded sill band and a painted timber roof with trusses supported on beast corbels. At the west end is an arcade of two bays into the Cotton Chapel, with a quatrefoil pier and heavily moulded arches.

Inside the south doorway are two wide chamfers and a hood mould with head stops; the dovetailed planks of the fourteenth-century door remain visible. Adjacent is the doorway to the porch parvise and a blocked door to the demolished Corpus Christi Guild chapel, which contains a reset medieval brass. Two shafted tomb recesses with canopies feature nodding ogees. Triple sedilia display quatrefoil columns, cusped arches and heads.

The north aisle is similar to the south, with three low tomb recesses.

The chancel features an eighteenth-century painted barrel-vaulted ceiling and a flower frieze matching the nave, with nine steps rising to the sanctuary.

Fittings

The font is an octagonal nineteenth-century example in elaborate fourteenth-century style, designed by Edward Welby Pugin and set on a large stepped stone plinth. The reredos dates to 1890 and was created by W S Weatherley. The pulpit is of 1612, octagonal on a carved polygonal shaft, with richly carved panels, gadrooned arches, paired fluted Ionic columns, a carved back panel, and a tester with full cornice and obelisk finials. Curved eighteenth-century stairs with slender barley-sugar twist balusters and fluted newels are present. The choir stalls date to around 1390 and feature good misericords; their canopies were installed in 1853–60. Wrought-iron communion rails from 1754 were altered in 1853. A seventeenth-century parish chest survives. A door knocker on the south tower door dates to the thirteenth century and features a lion's head. A Charles I coat-of-arms and ten hatchments are displayed in the tower.

Stained glass includes work by M & A O'Connor (1853), Kempe (1889), Burlison and Grylls (1944) and others.

Monuments include an incised slab of Tournai marble of 1312 to a Hanseatic merchant at the west end of the north aisle. Two busts dating to around 1400 are present: one of Walter Pescod and his wife (died 1398) and one of a priest (circa 1400). The south aisle contains a brass of around 1400 and a fifteenth-century alabaster knight on a tombchest featuring ogee panels and angels, alongside an alabaster lady, possibly Dame Margaret Tilney. Near the tower are two early eighteenth-century cartouches. Various late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century classical wall tablets commemorate members of the Fydell family.