Church Of St Nicolas

Church of St Nicolas, Nuneaton

This is a Grade I listed church on Vicarage Street, Nuneaton. The building dates from around 1340, with the tower built in the 15th century and major alterations to the clerestory, nave arcades, and roof during the late 15th century. The chancel north chapel and arcade were partly rebuilt in the early 16th century. In 1852–1853, the architect Ewan Christian extended the chancel and inserted a new chancel arch. The vestry was extended in the early 20th century.

The church is constructed of ashlar and regularly coursed sandstone. The chancel has a 19th-century plain-tile roof with some fish-scale tiles and ridge cresting; lead roofs with moulded cornices and embattled parapets cover other sections. The building features coped gable parapets.

The church comprises an aisled nave, chancel with chancel chapels, a west tower, and a north vestry. The architectural style is predominantly Perpendicular. The plan includes a four-bay chancel and four-bay nave.

The chancel features angle buttresses of two offsets with steep gablets, mouldings, carving, and crocketed and gableted pinnacles. The five-light east window displays reticulated tracery with hood mould and head stops. Similar buttresses appear on the north and south sides, though without pinnacles. A moulded frieze runs along the chancel. The north side has a three-light window, and rainwater heads are dated 1853. The north chapel and aisle form one space. An east diagonal buttress of two offsets supports the structure, and a three-light east window has curvilinear tracery. The first and second bays contain three-light windows with simple tracery and a small shouldered doorway between. The third bay has a two-light window with reticulated tracery and a large buttress. The fourth bay contains a straight-headed window. The vestry adjoins the next two bays, with diagonal buttresses and an east doorway featuring a hood mould and plank door. The north-east corner has an external stack with an octagonal shaft. A three-light uncusped west window appears on the aisle. The north-west doorway of the aisle has three moulded orders and a 19th-century plank door. Both aisles have two-light west windows with reticulated tracery.

An eight-bay clerestory of three-light windows with continuous mouldings runs along the nave. The south chapel spans four narrow bays and features a low diagonal buttress with an ogee niche, and south buttresses. A large three-light east window has renewed reticulated tracery. On the south side, the first and third bays have three-light windows positioned high. The second bay preserves an early 14th-century window of three stepped cusped lancets with roll mouldings. A two-light south-east window has reticulated tracery. Both windows have hood moulds with head stops. The moulded cornice retains remains of carvings. The south-west corner has a canted stair projection with a high plinth and a small Tudor-arch door on its right side. The lower four-bay aisle features diagonal and south buttresses of three moulded offsets. The western bay has an elaborately moulded doorway with ballflower decoration, an inner four-centred arched doorway, and blind tracery in the tympanum, fitted with 19th-century double-leaf doors. A short three-light window above uses its sill course to form the hood mould of the doorway. Other bays contain large three-light windows with hood moulds and return stops throughout.

The tower comprises three stages with splay string courses and diagonal buttresses of six offsets. The west doorway has two broad-chamfered orders and 19th-century double-leaf doors with decorative ironwork. A three-light window above has a hood mould with head stops. The second stage displays a round clock face within a moulded stone frame set in a moulded stone star-shaped panel. The third stage contains two-light bell-chamber openings with largely renewed tracery and hood moulds. A moulded cornice and embattled parapet with crocketed pinnacles, renewed to the south-west, crown the tower. An octagonal south-east turret rises above the parapet.

The interior is entirely plastered and whitewashed. The chancel has a three-bay north arcade of two moulded orders of varying widths. The western arch is higher and features an outer segmental pointed arch with different mouldings. A 14th-century south arcade comprises two wide, shallow, chamfered orders, the outer continuous, with a head corbel to the south-east. A 19th-century wagon roof features painted chamfered arched braces, boarding, a moulded wall plate, and corbels. A 19th-century chancel arch of two chamfered orders has spandrels with pierced tracery. The nave contains four-bay arcades of two orders with moulded lozenge-section piers; mouldings continue upward to frame the clerestory windows. A tower arch of three broad-chamfered orders provides access. The nave and aisles have Perpendicular painted, moulded, and panelled roofs with carved bosses; the principal bosses are gilded. The south chapel has a corbel head in its east wall.

Fittings include a 19th-century octagonal stone font and stalls, an octagonal wood pulpit dated 1902, and a carved oak reredos dated 1927. The south chapel contains a piscina with a crocketed ogee arch combined with a credence shelf, and a vaulted sedile with a nodding ogee crocketed canopy and pinnacles.

Monuments are numerous. The chancel north wall has a chamfered segmental-pointed tomb recess. An alabaster chest tomb of Sir Harmaduke Constable (1560) features a recumbent effigy and shield panels. Wall monuments include: William Craddock (1833, north-east), a neoclassical design with draped urn and panel by the Patent Works, Westminster; Mary Combes (1668, north-west), with composite columns, sections of pediment, achievement of arms, shaped raised panel, swags, and skulls, with a predella medallion of a head; Reverend John Ryder (1791, south-east), featuring a broken pediment with consoles and flaming urn and an oval panel with palms; and Anthony Trotman (1662) and Abigail (1703, south), an ambitious monument with two busts on an inscribed pedestal, an architectural frame of pilaster panels with painted cartouches of arms, a large moulded entablature with drapery, a cartouche of arms with four gilt-winged heads, fruit and putti, and a predella depicting a corpse in a winding sheet.