Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas, Fulbeck

This is a parish church built over many centuries, from the 10th century onwards, with major work in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. The building was substantially restored in 1888. It is built of coursed limestone rubble and ashlar with slate and lead roofs, and comprises a west tower, nave, north and south aisles, and chancel.

The west tower has three stages. The lowest stage dates mainly to the 13th century and is built of coursed rubble with ashlar clasping and midwall buttresses. It has a roll moulded plinth, a 15th century stair on the west side, and a 15th century three-light Perpendicular window in the west wall with a four-centred arched door to the stairs. A 18th century door with timber lintel opens in the south side, and two 19th century pointed-headed lights are set in the south wall of the middle stage. A fragment of Anglo-Saxon sculpture is preserved in the middle stage of the north wall, immediately above and to the left of the central 15th century buttress. The fragment bears interlace ornament on the right and a panel with cable moulded border to the left, and appears to be from a panel rather than a cross shaft. The top stage contains large 15th century two-light louvered belfry openings with two tiers of paired lights on each side. The lower lights have four-centred heads whilst the upper have cusped trefoils with moulded hood moulds and beast-headed label stops. The roof is elaborately embattled and pinnacled with projecting gargoyles; the middle pinnacles on each side are on diagonal projections supported on grotesque corbels.

The north aisle has an ashlar west wall with a three-light flowing traceried window with cinquefoil motif (recut in the 19th century). The north wall of the aisle contains a 14th century three-light trefoil-headed window with reticulated tracery and a heavy hood mould with human mask label stops. The north door is 14th century with heavily moulded pointed head. The north nave wall has four three-light 15th century clerestory windows with cinquefoil cusped heads beneath moulded four-centred arches and continuous hood mould. Above is a parapet with shield and lattice decoration and pinnacles. The east wall of the aisle has a three-light reticulated window with pointed head. Adjacent is a small monolithic 14th century window set in the north wall of the nave with two round-headed lights and mandorla over.

The north wall of the chancel is partly of coursed rubble and partly ashlar, refaced in the 19th century. The windows are 19th century copies of 14th century two-light ones. The parapet is also 19th century, dated 1892 on the south side. The east wall of the church is of 19th century ashlar with a contemporary five-light window.

The south chancel wall matches the north, but has a 14th century trefoil-headed door. The south-east pinnacle of the nave roof has a grotesque form, apparently representing the arms of the Myddletons, who held the manor of Fulbeck during the 15th century; it includes a shield supported by a Harpy and a Wyvern.

The south aisle is of ashlar with a late 14th century four-light east window with ogee heads and panel tracery above, topped by a pointed arch with human head label stops. Two fine 14th century curvilinear three-light windows occupy the south wall of the aisle, with ogee trefoil heads, roundels with mouchettes and quatrefoils above, beneath simply chamfered hood moulds and human head label stops. The south porch is 14th century, comprising a simple arched opening with label stops and chamfered hood mould, side benches, and a cross at the gable, with trefoil-headed side lights. The west wall of the south aisle has a curvilinear three-light window with chamfered hood mould and mouchettes. The south door is a 13th century pointed arch with hood mould (the label stops have been removed), and features a 14th century oak ogee-headed Judas door with blank reticulated panels above with trefoil heads and elongated quatrefoils.

Inside, the north and south nave arcades comprise three bays dating to around 1300, with double-chamfered arches standing on heavily recut round pillars with annular capitals. Above the easternmost bay of the south arcade is a fragmentary, probably 10th century circular window, now blocked. The nave roof is 19th century but rests on 15th century grotesque corbels; reused in the roof are foliate and heraldic bosses and standing half figures from the 15th century roof. The 15th century tower arch is tall with heavily moulded head and hood mould with foliate label stops. Above the arch the coping stones of an earlier roof can be seen. A plain square-section string course is visible on the exteriors of the nave walls from the side aisles; these are probably 10th century, since above the string course in the north aisle are long-and-short quoins that appear to be in build with it. These quoins mark the westward extent of the Saxon nave and, together with the evidence of the string courses and splayed circular window in the south wall, indicate that the nave walls above the later arcades are all Saxon. The north and south aisle roofs are both 19th century.

The south aisle contains two statue brackets and a 14th century piscina beneath a flat lintel with a four-lobed basin. In the north wall of the nave behind the pulpit is a fragment of early 12th century blank arcading, of which only the roll-moulded heads survive with a zone of saltire crosses over. Above is a 15th century four-centred arched opening to a now-vanished roof loft. Fragments of the fine ogee-headed screen are incorporated into the 19th century tower screen. The chancel arch was enlarged in 1888 to its present imposing 14th century form and proportions.

In the chancel is a restored 13th century sedilia on the south side and a contemporary arched tomb recess in the north wall, now containing a 16th century iron-bound chest. Two seats are made from cut-down 15th century choir seating and retain their misericordes. A credence table on the north side is made from a reused 12th century cushion capital. Other fittings are 19th and 20th century. The font is earlier, apparently a late 12th century piece with four sections of blank arcading beneath cable and laurel wreath mouldings and supported at the angles by free-standing octagonal piers; it has been heavily recut in the 19th century.

The monuments include: in the south aisle, monuments to Elizabeth Shaw (died 1736) with scrolly cartouche, urn and cherubs, and to Elizabeth Brown (died 1683) with a broken scrolled pediment and a cartouche bearing an incised coat of arms. In the base of the east window reveal is a fine elongated slab with curved top to Timothy Thorold, Doctor of Physick (died 1641), dated to 1680. In the north aisle are wall plaques to the Fanes of Fulbeck Hall, beginning with Neville Fane (died 1680), commemorated by an oblong slab with curved top and painted coat of arms, and continuing through succeeding centuries with further 17th century stones and later wall plaques. A 17th century alms box stands to the west of the south door with floral decoration. All rear arches of the 14th century windows in the nave and aisles have human-headed label stops.