Church Of St Nicholas

The Church of St Nicholas is a church of 1822, with re-ordering of the east end in 1897, designed by MG Thompson. It is a building of group value, constructed in the Perpendicular style. The church is built of gault brick in Flemish bond, with ashlar dressings and Coade stone pinnacles, alongside cast-iron tracery and columns. It is roofed with slate.

The plan is of a hall church, comprising a 5-bay nave and 2-storey aisles. The west tower is square, with west doors flanked by entrance bays containing stairs to the tower and galleries. A canted east end is present with single-storey vestries on each side. Throughout, windows are of 3 lights in a Perpendicular style. The tower has three stages, with panelled polygonal buttresses surmounted by crocketed pinnacles, an embattled parapet and a stone spire. Clock faces are set within stone panels beneath the bellstage openings. Panelled buttresses with crocketed pinnacles and brick parapets define the entrance bays. The aisles feature buttresses with crocketed pinnacles and brick parapets; the upper tier of aisle windows sits on a sill string course, while the lower tier is basket-arched.

Inside, the gallery staircases feature ramped and wreathed handrails, stick balusters, and column newels. Quatrefoil piers define the nave arcade, and vault shafts rise to a groin vaulted ceiling with foliate bosses. Flat ceilings with crossed ribs are found in the aisles. Galleries run along both aisles and the west end, with a frontal carved with cusped arcading on foliate corbels. A stylistic feature of the west end galleries is the upper tier of iron “cages”. Fittings include box pews to the nave and galleries, with most doors having been removed. An organ by Flight and Robson is located on the west gallery. The east end was raised in 1897, with new stalls and a contemporary pulpit introduced. The altar rail, with iron cusped arches, may predate this date. Painted Paternoster and Commandment boards are housed within a Gothic reredos.

Memorials include a fine marble wall tablet of 1666 to Sir William Clarke on the north side, featuring paved composite columns, a broken swan neck pediment with a bust and a cartouche below. Further 18th-century marble wall tablets commemorate Mary Leach and Sarah Bridge. A large collection of early 19th-century grey and black marble wall tablets are dedicated to the Cox, Hopkins and Bridge families. Early 19th-century stained glass is found in the east windows. The Royal Arms of George IV are displayed on the west gallery. A Purbeck font, dating from the 13th century, is placed on a restored base.

The church originally served as a Chapel of Ease to the Church of All Saints, Dovercourt, until 1871. It stands on the site of a chapel founded circa 1210 by Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, which was reportedly in a dilapidated state in 1819. The current structure cost approximately £20,000, funded through subscription and rates. Surviving accounts detail the Coade stone pinnacles from 1821.