Church Of St Nicholas

The Church of St Nicholas is a flint church with stone dressings and solid stone buttresses, built on the site of a 12th-century church. The west tower dates to the late 14th century, and the remainder of the church was constructed in the late 15th century. In 1475, Sir John Howard and Sir John Broughton received letters patent from King Edward IV to found a perpetual chantry.

The west tower features diagonal buttresses and a castellated parapet. The nave and chancel, which are continuous, and the aisles, all have castellated parapets and panel traceried windows. An octagonal staircase tower on the north side provided access to the rood loft and aisle roof. The south porch has a fan vault, an external canopied niche above the arch and a castellated holy water stoop in the angle of the south-east buttress. The south door, dating to the 15th century, has traceried ornamentation in the upper panels.

The interior has seen little alteration since the 17th century and retains a remarkably complete picture of a medieval church, including stalls for chantry priests and benches for parishioners. The seven-bay chancel and nave have a fine, original arch braced cambered tie-beam roof with a cornice carved with lions, hounds, hares, and harts. C17 shields bearing the arms of the Robinson family are superimposed on larger shields of earlier date. Remnants of the moulded and embattled roof beam and the lower part of the traceried roof screen remain. There are fine choir stalls with traceried fronts, and parclose screens dividing them from the chancel aisles. Behind the roof screen are four misericords, three carved with foliage and one with a crane holding a stone. The altar, communion rail, and octagonal pulpit date to the 17th century. The bench ends are carved with animals copied from the medieval bestiary and include a skirting originally used to secure rushes for kneeling. Brasses include a fine brass of Henry and Margaret Everard (1524), a brass of a lady of the Drury family (1530), and a brass inscription to William Burn (1591). North of the chancel, an altar tomb holds two shrouded cadavers of unknown identity. The 15th-century octagonal font is carved with representations of the seven sacraments and the crucifixion.