Parish Church Of St Nicholas (Church Of England)

The parish church of St Nicholas is a building of early 12th-century origins, located in Great Munden. It incorporates elements from the mid 14th century, the late 15th century, and a restoration in 1865-6 by George and Henry Godwin, with further repairs in 1874 and 1929. Constructed primarily of flint rubble with flint facings and stone dressings, the church features a pudding stone base course to the tower and steep old red tile roofing to the chancel and a timber S porch. The nave roof is now slated, while the S aisle has a copper roof and a small spire.

Original 12th-century features include a round-arched, now blocked, north door with external colonettes, cushion capitals, and a bowtel molded arch. A Norman arch is believed to be covered over in the north side of the chancel. The chancel arch retains a section of the original north jamb, featuring round shafts, a volute capital with a grotesque face, and a chamfered impost. A small round-headed north window is also present in the chancel, with deep internal splays.

The wide south aisle, dating to around 1350, likely served as a family burial place for the de Boys family; it incorporates a three-bay arcade with restored octagonal piers, a decorative Dec window to the east (3-light) and west (2-light), two wide, ogee-headed tomb recesses, and a piscina in the S wall. A panelled stone reredos from the early 15th century, featuring ogee headed niches and an embattled molding, is also present, along with two 3-light windows in the south wall (restored) and a south door with two molded orders. The nave has a 14th-century doorway leading to the west tower, a 15th-century image niche on the north wall, crocketted and finialled with traces of paint, three 15th-century N windows each with a different head shape, and a late 15th-century 4-centred depressed chancel arch that has been widened to the south.

The nave features a 15th-century queen-post open roof with braces to the purlins and principals, wall posts on carved stone musical angel corbels, and curved braces with pierced quatrefoil spandrels. A similar roof structure extends to the 3-bay S aisle, incorporating molded purlins and stone corbels. A 19th-century boarded waggon roof covers the chancel. An altar window is from the 19th century, while a 14th-century S doorway and a 15th-century 2-light window are also present.

The west tower is unbuttressed, three-stage, with an embattled parapet and a small set-back spire with vane. Narrow tower windows, repaired with tile slips, have been repaired using a Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) method. A string course delineates each stage. Wide, pointed bell-chamber openings are positioned in the upper stage. The church’s fittings include an hexagonal, Jacobean oak pulpit, a bequest from Sir Robert Cecil, early 16th-century chancel stalls with carved ends bearing the initials 'RK' (for rector Robert King 1510-1538), and an octagonal font dating from around 1891, carved with floral panels and standing on an octagonal rose marble shaft with a molded stone base. Two monuments on the S wall of the aisle commemorate Sarah and Gratiana Spence (1753 and 1776), taking the form of bellied cartouches with carved hatchments at the top.