Church Of St Nicolas

The Church of St Nicolas is a substantial parish church dating from around 1330, which retains some earlier fabric. It received 14th and 15th century additions and was restored in 1849-50 and 1877 by Joseph Clarke. The church is built of flint and pebble rubble with some Roman brick, stone dressings, and slate and lead roofs.

Plan and Structure

The church comprises a nave with north and south aisles, a west tower and south porch. The chancel has a north chapel with vestry and a south chapel. Notably, the chancel and west tower are on a different alignment to the nave, suggesting the building was rebuilt around an older core, possibly a cruciform structure.

Exterior

The exterior is largely a consistent 14th-century design, except for the chancel chapels and vestry. The chancel has a three-light window with ogee reticulated tracery, renewed in 1844. The north vestry and south chapel end in line with the chancel east wall.

The embattled north vestry was originally two-storeyed and has in the east wall a restored two-light window in the lower part and a 14th-century window in the upper part. The north wall of the vestry has a late 14th-century lower window and two 14th-century windows in the upper part, plus an entrance to the former stair turret. The north wall of the north chapel has a very large late 15th-century window of four traceried lights. The embattled south chapel has a late 15th-century east window and three late 15th-century windows with a contemporary door in its south wall.

Neither the aisles nor the nave has a parapet. The north aisle has three north windows of around 1330 with Decorated tracery and a blocked 14th-century door with a moulded arch and hood mould. The south aisle has three south windows. The western two are similar to those in the north aisle, but the eastern is late 14th century and has three lights with dropped ogee tracery. The south door is late 12th century, presumably reset in the 14th century, and has three moulded orders with chevron in the outer order and a 14th-century hood mould with head stops. Above it is a record of repairs in 1700.

The west windows of both aisles are similar to those in the north aisle. The nave clerestory has four windows on each side: the eastern two are early 16th century with two foiled lights in a square head, while the western pairs are circular and 14th century. There is a single 15th-century light in the nave east gable.

The south porch is embattled. The outer opening is late 14th century and has many small mouldings. There are two three-light openings in the porch east and west walls with tracery similar to that in the aisles.

The west tower is of three stages with diagonal buttresses at the western angles and has a north-east stair turret and embattled parapet added in the 19th century. The west door is 14th century and has moulded jambs. The west window is similar to those in the aisles. The second stage has a single 14th-century light in the north, south and west walls, and there are two-light 14th-century openings in each face of the upper stage.

Interior

The interior is plastered and painted and, like the outside, is mainly 14th century with some later work in the chapels. The chancel arch of around 1330 is of two orders on attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases. The 15th-century doors to the former rood stair survive in the north-east corner of the nave by the chancel arch.

In the chancel north wall there is a blocked 14th-century window with an adjacent niche, and next to it a late 14th-century door to the vestry, which has moulded jambs and an arch carved with square flowers. The 15th-century arch to the north chapel is four-centred and has two orders, the inner on attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases, the outer continuous. There is a similar arch between the chapel and the north aisle. The two-bay arcade to the south chapel is 15th century and has four-centred arches of two orders on a quatrefoil pier.

The north and south nave arcades are around 1330 and have two moulded orders on piers with four attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases. The clerestory windows have internal relieving arches of brick. The narrow 14th-century tower arch is of three moulded orders on rounded shafts with moulded capitals and bases. There is reused 12th-century work in the responds and reused 13th-century work in the outer orders of the arch. A large recess with brick jambs and a pointed head in the north wall of the tower is probably related to a former gallery.

Principal Fixtures

There is a 15th-century square-headed piscina in the chancel, and another 15th century with a cinquefoiled head in the south chapel. There are two late 15th or early 16th century chancel seats with curved arm rests and panelled backs and bases.

The fine chancel screen is late 15th century and was modified in the 19th century, when the cross and canopy were added to designs by Ernest Geldart in 1891. It is of eight bays and has cusped arches with cusped ogee sub-arches below. There are 19th-century screens in a Perpendicular style in the south chapel. The church possesses Royal arms of William III, carved in the round.

There is good 19th and 20th century glass, including the west window by Wailes, 1850, given by noted architect Sir Gilbert Scott in memory of his clerk of workers, Henry Mortimer, killed in 1849 working on Scott's Nikolakirche building in Hamburg.

Roofs and Woodwork

Except for the chancel, the roofs are all old. The north and south aisles have 14th-century pent roofs with moulded tie beams and struts above the ties. The north chapel roof is 15th century, of a flat, pent design with moulded principals, purlins and wall plates. The north vestry roof is plain, 15th century. The south chapel roof is late 15th century of a pent design with moulded principals and purlin. The nave roof is of an uncertain date and plastered behind the rafters. The south porch roof is probably around 1700, the date of an inscription recording repair over the south door.

Other woodwork includes the door to the north vestry which is late 14th century and has moulded ribs and strap hinges. The south chapel south door has a reset 17th-century door. There is late 17th-century panelling in the vestry.

Monuments

There are many good monuments. These include a 12th-century coffin lid and another of the 13th century. There are three late 15th or 16th century brass indents and a floor slab to Elizabeth --, died 1664.

There is a large standing monument to John Southcote, justice of the Queen's Bench, died 1585 and his wife Elizabeth: an altar tomb with very fine effigies, with an adjacent tablet with Corinthian side columns and achievements of arms.

Wall tablets include: Mary, widow of Thomas Smith and wife of Francis Herve, died 1592, of alabaster and marble with side pilasters, cornice and obelisks around kneeling figures, attributed to Garat Johnson the Elder; Robert Barwell, died 1697 and his wife Sarah, a white marble tablet with cherubs and an achievement of arms attributed to John Nost; and George Lisle, rector of Rivenhall, died 1687, of black and white marble with a shield of arms. William East, died 1726, a large monument filling the blocked window in the north chapel, a bust above an inscription tablet by Stanton and Horsnaile. Hannah Pattison, died 1828 and her son William and daughter-in-law Sarah, died 1832, drowned in France: a bas relief of the couple being reunited in heaven with the mother, by C A Rivers.

Four helms of the 15th to 17th centuries are preserved in the south chapel, including one assembled from parts for use as a funeral display. There are several bequest boards in the tower.

Historical Context

The oldest surviving part of the church is the late 12th-century south door, reset in the south aisle in the mid 14th century, but evidence for the church to which it belonged has been lost. Around 1330, the whole church, including the nave, aisles, chancel and west tower was rebuilt. The north vestry and south porch were added in the late 14th century, and the north chapel was built between the vestry and the aisle in the 15th century. The south chapel is also 15th century. There were interior alterations, including the construction of galleries, in the post-medieval period, but these were removed during the two 19th-century restoration programmes in 1849-50 and 1877, both by Joseph Clarke. There was some refurnishing by E Geldart in the late 19th century and the church was partially reordered around 2002.

Witham gives its name to the local Hundred, an important early administrative division, and was settled from pre-historic times. There was also Roman settlement in the area. The Anglo-Saxon settlement at Witham was at Chipping Hill, in the vicinity of the parish church, and included a royal holding, a mill and a market. The church is not mentioned in the Domesday book of 1086, but it is probable that there was a church, most likely on or near the site of the present church. The very irregular plan of the late medieval church suggests that it was constructed around a large, early core. In the mid 12th century, Witham was given to the Templars, who established a new market some distance from the church, near the old Roman road. Nonetheless, St Nicolas remained the parish church, perhaps because it had already been granted to St Martin le Grand in London and so was outside the grant to the Templars. Its rebuilding in the 14th and 15th centuries reflects the prosperity of the town as a centre of cloth production and as a market town.