Parish Church Of St Nicholas (Church Of England)

Great Munden TL 3524 GREAT MUNDEN WOOD END ROAD (north side)

11/7 Parish Church of St Nicholas 24.1.67 (C of E) (Formerly listed under rural district GV of Ware) II*

Parish church. Early C12 nave and chancel, mid C14 S aisle, late C15 W tower and chancel arch. Restoration 1865-6 by George and Henry Godwin renewed arcade. S porch 1874 (replacing C16 brick porch shown in 1832 drawing by J C Buckler) repaired 1929. Flint rubble with flint facing and stone dressings. Pudding stone base course to tower. Steep old red tile roof to chancel and timber S porch. Low-pitched nave roof now slated. Copper roof to S aisle and small spire. Original C12 features include round arched N door (blocked) with external colonettes, cushion capitals and bowtel moulded arch; N jamb of chancel arch with round shafts to each angle,volute capital with grotesque face, and chamfered impost surviving in chancel; and small round-headed N window in chancel with deep internal splays. A Norman arch is said to be covered over in N side of chancel. Wide S aisle c1350, probably built as a burial place by the de Boys family, has a 3-bay arcade with octagonal piers (restored), fine Dec windows to E (3-light) and W (2-light), 2 wide ogee headed tomb-recesses and a piscina in the S wall, an early C15 panelled stone reredos with ogee headed niches and embattled moulding, 2 3-light windows in the S wall (restored) and S door with 2 moulded orders. The nave has a C14 doorway into the W tower, a C15 image niche on the N wall crocketted and finialled with traces of painting, 3 C15 3-light N windows each with a different head, and a late C15 4-centred depressed chancel arch widened to S. 3-bay C15 queen-post open roof to nave with braces to purlins and principals, moulded wall- posts on carved stone musical angel corbels and curved braces with pierced quatrefoil spandrels. Similar spandrels and wall posts to 3-bay S aisle roof with moulded purlins and stone corbels. C19 boarded waggon roof to chancel. E window C19, C14 S doorway and C15 2-light window. Unbuttressed, 3-stage, W tower with enbattled parapet and small set-back spire with vane. Narrow windows in 2 lower stages repaired with tile slips by SPAB technique. A string course marks each stage. Wide pointed bell- chamber openings. Fittings include an hexagonal Jacobean oak pulpit said to have been a bequest of Sir Robert Cecil, early C16 chancel stalls with carved ends and initials 'RK' for rector Robert King (1510-1538), and octagonal font c1891 carved with floral panels and on an octagonal rose marble shaft with moulded stone base. 2 monuments on S wall of aisle to Sarah and Gratiana Spence 1753 and 1776 in the form of bellied cartouches with hatchment carved at top. (RCHM (1911) 104: VCH (1912) 128-29: Pevsner (1977) 153: H C Andrews History of the Church of St Nicholas, Much Munden (n.d.) pamplet available at church).

Listing NGR: TL3551924185