Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

Parish church on the east side of Elstree High Street, originally medieval but substantially rebuilt in 1853 by P.C. Hardwick on the foundations of the medieval church. The rebuild reused some 15th-century stones and retained the north aisle of 1824 by Lewis W. Wyatt. Additions were made in 1880 by A Blomfield and c.1897.

The building is constructed of brick faced with knapped flint and stone dressings, with a tiled roof. It is designed in the Polychrome Gothic Revival style. The plan comprises a five-bay nave with north and south aisles, a chancel with a south organ bay and north vestry, and a southwest tower.

The exterior features a stone-capped plinth and continuous stone sill band. Random square stones are set within the flint facing, with stone quoins and coped parapets with carved kneelers to all gables. The south aisle retains a mid to late 15th-century door surround with a four-centred arch under a square head with hood mould and half-moulded jambs to chamfer. Rose and shield appear in the spandrels. To the left is a single lancet window and to the right are two paired lancets with trefoiled heads. A central buttress supports the aisle. Three gabled dormers with three round-headed leaded lights each project from the roof. The aisle roofs pitch just below the nave eaves.

The north aisle has three single lancets and one paired lancet, with diagonal and intermediate straight buttresses. The chancel, slightly lower than the nave, features a large five-light east window with ornate tracery and angle buttresses. A sill string course is returned onto a two-bay organ extension to the south from 1880, which has twin gables and two two-light windows with carved stops to hoods, angle buttresses, and a central straight buttress with gargoyle.

To the north, a two-storey vestry has an entrance to the east, paired lancets on the north ground floor, and a two-light first floor window with carved stops to the hood, with a stack to the right of the gable. A one-storey link to the north aisle from c.1897 has a two-light window with a lintel inscribed to honour Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

At the west end is a four-light west window with angular tracery and stops to the hood mould, with the sill string course stepping down to the left. A buttress separates the north aisle, which has a two-light window.

The tower has angle buttresses and a pointed arch to the west entrance with colonnettes in the jambs, topped by a gabled head supporting a statue in a sculpted niche. A clock is positioned to the right of the statue. To the south is a quatrefoil window with gabled head, with slit windows in the upper stage to the south and east. The belfry sits above a continuous quatrefoil frieze, with tall paired transomed lancets with trefoiled heads, colonnettes in the jambs, and hood moulds on all sides. A broached shingled spire rises above, with an octagonal stair turret to the west having slit windows and a finial at the head.

Interior

All but the west respond of the south arcade piers retain 15th-century bases and lower shafts. The upper shafts, capitals, and chamfered pointed arches of the south and north arcades date from 1853 and follow the 15th-century model. The nave roof retains three early arch-braced collar beams, which were used as the basis for the 19th-century truss. A tall chamfered chancel arch spans without responds, with a ceiled chancel roof. The chancel floor steps up in stages toward the east altar.

The west bay of the south aisle contains the tower with an entrance from the nave and an angled stair-turret door to the southwest. At the east end of the north aisle is the entrance to the vestry link, with remains of an earlier window above the door. The entrance to the organ bays from the south aisle has responds terminated below capitals, with a two-bay arcade with heavy mouldings from the chancel to the organ bays.

A 15th-century font in the west bay of the north aisle is octagonal with quatrefoil decoration. The bowl sits on a renewed link to the stem, which has an internal pillar cased in a hollow octagonal drum with pierced panels. Wrought metalwork forming the base of the chancel screen was created by A. Blomfield in 1881. Painted quatrefoils and stars in the spandrels of the nave arcades and over the chancel arch survive from the 1853 decorative scheme.

Monuments include an alabaster wall slab in the north aisle near the font to Olive Buck (died 1603), with aedicular setting, delicately carved arms, ribbon ornament, and metric inscription. An aedicular wall slab in the south aisle to the east of the south door commemorates Samuel Nicoll (died 1723). Two 18th-century wall slabs in the tower on the south wall record W. Sharpe (died 1767) and T. Beake (died 1732). Eighteenth-century coffin plaques to the Sharpe family are located at the east end of the north aisle.

Two quatrefoils removed from the 1853 east window have been repositioned in the north aisle west bay and south window in the tower. A baptistery window is by Sir N. Comper.