Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

Potter Heigham, Church Road (east side)

This parish church is constructed primarily of flint with ashlar dressings and some brick. The nave and chancel are thatched, the south aisle is leaded, and the north aisle is felted.

The church comprises a 12th-century west tower and chancel, with a 13th-century nave and aisles. The chancel was remodelled in the 15th century, and the tower received a belfry stage in the same period. Major building works occurred around 1500, with documentary evidence of bequests dating from 1479 to 1535. A new aisle was built in this phase, and the church was leaded in 1506. The building underwent restoration in 1802, 1875, 1895 (affecting windows, roof and porch) and 1951 (south aisle roof).

The tower is constructed in two stages, with the lower stage circular. A 19th-century 2-light window with Y tracery occupies the west face. Below the 15th-century octagonal belfry stage sits a corbel table enriched with grotesque heads. The belfry stage is embellished with flushwork and features 2-light cusped windows to alternate faces, with flushwork tracery filling the remaining faces. A crenellated flushwork parapet with short pinnacles sits above the corbel table.

The aisle west windows are single lancets with hood moulds. A 2-storey gabled south porch with diagonal buttresses contains a double-chamfered entrance arch. Centrally placed within the porch is a brick statuary niche containing a medieval carving of a Wild Man, flanked by one brick lancet on each side. The porch features 2-light 15th-century ogee side windows.

Both aisles have diagonal corner buttresses and one stepped side buttress each. Three 19th-century Perpendicular square-headed 3-light windows light the aisles. Six restored late 15th-century 3-light clerestory windows run along the building with continuous hood moulds. A wave-moulded doorway provides access to the north aisle.

The chancel features two 2-light late 15th-century south windows with an arched priests' door between them. One 2-light Y tracery window lights the north side. The east window is a 3-light cusped window with intersecting tracery, dating from the early 14th century.

Interior

The nave is lit by a four-bay octagonal arcade with moulded bases, moulded capitals, and double-chamfered arches. The tower arch is double-chamfered, springing from polygonal responds with polygonal capitals. The chancel arch likewise has double-chamfered construction and polygonal responds with capitals.

The nave roof dates from the late 15th or early 16th century and is constructed as a hammer-beam roof. The hammer beams drop on arched braces to polygonal wall posts with bases and capitals, these posts resting on angel corbels bearing shields, crowns and scrolls. Arched braces rise to the principals, with pierced spandrels. Two tiers of butt purlins support the ridge piece, which is set with bosses. All timbers are moulded, and the hammer beams are crenellated. The aisle roofs are of similar date, with arched braces rising from wall posts to purlins and principals, all moulded.

An octagonal 15th-century brick font is of considerable rarity. It stands on an octagonal flint plinth with steps on alternate facets and shields in rectangular panels on the remaining facets. The panelled stem features moulded brick buttress strips. The bowl is panelled with trefoiled heads in each panel. Twelve 15th-century poppyhead bench ends survive in the nave, with a further four in the chancel.

The south aisle preserves monochrome wall paintings from the late 14th century depicting the seven works of mercy. Damaged late 14th-century wall paintings survive in the north aisle, showing Saint Christopher, Saint Anthony, a frieze of Joseph and Mary, the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Wise Men, Herod, and Saint Nicholas.

A chancel screen dated 1501 comprises 2 bays to the right and left of an arched opening with simple tracery heads. The dado is subdivided into 2 bays with tracery and paintings depicting, from left to right, Saint Mark, Saint Augustine, Saint John, Saint Gregory, Saint Jerome, Saint Eligius, Saint Luke, and Saint Ambrose. Above the screen sits the original rood beam supporting a timber Crucifixion of 1909, with fragments of wall painting surviving behind.

The chancel roof is 19th-century scissor-braced construction. A 17th-century altar rail with turned balusters and ball finials occupies the chancel.

A notable alabaster wall monument on the chancel south wall commemorates various members of the Myhill family from 1660 to 1709. It features a square inscription panel with drapery folds at the top and leaf scroll borders, above which sits a swan-necked broken pediment containing an urn. A semi-circular apron with relief skulls frames a coat of arms.

Brick parvis stairs occupy the south-west corner of the nave aisle, with a parvis roof of principals and ridge piece.