Church of St Nicholas is a Grade I listed building in the West Suffolk local planning authority area, England. First listed on 19 December 1961. A Medieval Church.

Church of St Nicholas

WRENN ID
winding-jamb-wind
Grade
I
Local Planning Authority
West Suffolk
Constituency
West Suffolk MP: Nick Timothy (Con)
Country
England
Date first listed
19 December 1961
Type
Church
Period
Medieval
Address
Church of St Nicholas, Top Green, Denston
OS grid reference
TL 760 529
Coordinates
52.1468, 0.57118
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

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.

Local climate

Church of St Nicholas sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 710 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 85% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 74% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 33 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 55% of listed buildings. Of these, 17 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

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