Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

Parish church constructed over multiple centuries from the 12th to 16th centuries, with substantial restoration work undertaken in 1865 and 1887. The building is constructed of limestone and ironstone coursed rubble with ashlar dressings, featuring plain tiled and lead roofs. It comprises a west tower, nave, chancel, and south porch.

The west tower dates to the 13th century and rises in three stages divided by chamfered string courses, with a moulded plinth base and three stepped buttresses against the west wall. The south side has a door with a round 19th-century head. A window in the lowest storey on the west side displays 12th-century details but is probably a 18th-century reconstruction featuring nook shafts, a round head with label stops, and a wavy line in the outer arch. The middle stage contains one 13th-century pointed-headed window on the south side, above which is a human head at the centre of the hood mould, with beast head label stops. The belfry lights are paired beneath monolithic tympana with plain hood moulds above, with mid-wall shafts carrying simple chamfered capitals. The tower top is castellated and supported on corbels, with 14th-century projecting gargoyles at the angles surmounted by pinnacles. A recessed 14th-century octagonal crocketed spire crowns the tower, featuring paired trefoil-headed lucarnes beneath quatrefoils, decorated gables at the base and above, and four alternating single-light trefoil-headed windows with decorated gables.

The north wall of the nave contains two 15th-century three-light windows with trefoil heads and irregular quatrefoils above, all beneath pointed heads with chamfered hood moulds. The north door is Transitional in style, with chamfered jambs, rudimentary capitals, and a pointed head with a chevron-moulded hood mould. Four stepped buttresses buttress this elevation. An early 16th-century three-light window stands eastwards, featuring a four-centred arch over with deep concave moulding and no drip mould. The roof has a parapet with two hacked-off gargoyles. The chancel north wall was rebuilt in 1887 but retains a reset 13th-century two-light window with a monolithic tympanum and chamfered hood mould. Beneath this are five fragments of worked stone: one a 13th-century cross fleury probably from a tombstone, with the others likely 14th-century, featuring incised flaring armed crosses.

The east wall of the south aisle has a plinth and a fine 15th-century light window with cusped trefoil-headed lights beneath four-centred arches, debased mouchettes at the centre, and framed by double concave mouldings with a moulded drip mould. Angle buttresses on the aisle support a parapet of tightly cusped lozenges containing shields, with angles surmounted by pinnacles and a gargoyle on the south-eastern angle. The south wall of the aisle features a two-light 15th-century cusped trefoil-headed window beneath a four-centred arch with a moulded drip mould. A four-centred arched doorway exists here, with upper stones of 19th-century date but bases of jambs with stop chamfering appearing 15th-century. Westwards is a wide 14th-century three-light window with four-centred arched heads and an over-arch with moulded hood mould. The western part of the south aisle is 14th-century and retains a two-light pointed-headed window with trefoil-headed lights surmounted by cusped trilobes and a simple chamfered hood mould over.

The south porch is 15th-century and cuts into two 14th-century trefoil-cusped trefoil-headed niches, now empty, which are surmounted by deeply moulded hood moulds rising to ogee points with floriated finials. A string course originally ran across the south wall at sill level, indicating an elaborate scheme now with hacked-back details. The porch features angled buttresses, a simple parapet, and two pinnacles. The door is pointed with two chamfers and a moulded hood mould, with rudimentary octagonal capitals. Above the door is a rectangular plaque set in a chamfered frame bearing a 15th-century Latin dedicatory inscription in Lombardic letters commemorating Thomas Pacy. The west end of the south aisle, constructed in ashlar, has a three-light 14th-century window matching that in the south wall, with a cusped trefoil-headed niche to the south featuring an ogee head similar to those cut by the porch. The south porch has side benches. The south door is 14th-century with a pointed head and roll-moulded angles; the capitals run out to form stepped string courses, with a moulded hood mould surmounted by an ogee-headed niche. A 15th-century Lombardic-lettered graffito appears beneath the string course to the west of the door.

Inside, a Transitional 13th-century three-bay south arcade features round pillars on circular bases with annular capitals and pointed arches of two chamfered orders with hobnail-decorated hood moulds. The 13th-century tower arch has three chamfered orders with hobnail decoration on the chamfered capitals and a chamfered hood mould above with beast head label stops. Above the tower arch is a door with a flat lintel beneath the 15th-century roof scar. A 13th-century tomb recess exists in the south aisle. In the south wall of the chapel at the east end of the aisle is a 14th-century cusped trefoil-headed piscina with a lobed basin. The 15th-century chancel arch is tall with engaged octagonal jambs, moulded capitals featuring human heads, and an arch of two chamfered orders above. South of the chancel arch is a three-light window with a flat lintel and three trefoil-headed lights with ogee arches. To the north is a 14th-century ogee-headed doorway into the rood loft, with a 15th-century four-centred arched opening above. The chancel screen is good 19th-century work. The chancel was heavily restored in 1887 but retains, in its south wall, the eastern reveal of a 13th-century pointed window cut by a 15th-century insertion of a wide four-centred archway into the now-vanished south chapel, now occupied by the organ.

The piscina and sedilia are all 19th-century but may reflect the original arrangement. A 13th-century tomb recess exists in the north wall within the sanctuary. All glass and fittings are 19th-century apart from a 15th-century octagonal chalice-shaped font. Two fragments of 14th-century recumbent effigies are built into the blocking of the north door of the nave: one of a priest in vestments, the other of a layman, each beneath trefoil heads, with the latter having censing angels in the spandrels.