Church of St Nicholas and attached walls

Church of St Nicholas and attached walls

An Anglican parish church on Church Street, Chiswick. The west tower was built for William Bordall, vicar from 1416 to 1435, while the rest of the church was rebuilt in 1882–84 for architect John Loughborough Pearson. The building is constructed of squared and coursed Kentish Rag with ashlar dressings, and features a stone-coped and gabled copper roof. The plan comprises a chancel flanked by a north vestry and south chapel, with an aisled nave and west tower, all executed in Perpendicular style.

The chancel contains a five-light Geometrical-style east window above a 1914–18 war memorial depicting a carved Crucifixion. To the north are a two-light Geometrical-style window and two similar lights, while the vestry features three-light Perpendicular-style windows. The four-bay north and south aisle elevations display Perpendicular-style fenestration, canted stair turrets on each side, a string course with gargoyles, and an ashlar castellated parapet with trefoiled blind arches. A plain pointed-arched door stands beside a Tudor-arched window at the east end of the north aisle, while the south aisle features a Decorated-style doorway with flowing tracery at its east end. A Decorated-style doorway with engaged shafts leads to the north porch, which has wrought-iron gates and panelled inner doors set in a similar doorway with rosettes to the architrave. The south porte-cochère has flaming-tracery hoods over three Decorated-style doorways and a vaulted interior.

The west tower, dating to the 15th century, comprises three stages with angle buttresses and string courses. It has a late 19th-century Perpendicular-style west doorway, a 15th-century hoodmould over a late 19th-century three-light Perpendicular-style window, lancet windows to the second floor with label moulds, Tudor-arched belfry windows, a castellated parapet, and a canted stair turret.

Interior features include a chancel with trefoiled rere-arches with engaged shafts, a Minton tile floor, and an alabaster reredos by Pearson. A brass Gothic-style communion rail and corbels with engaged shafts support a ribbed barrel-vaulted ceiling. Carved Gothic-style benches occupy the space, and the chancel is flanked by finely carved Perpendicular-style screens with cusped open tracery and foliate friezes. A Perpendicular-style arch with engaged shafts opens to the organ chamber, which contains a fine organ case by Timothy Russell from 1826, originally from Holy Trinity, Cloudesley Square, Islington.

The south chapel has a three-bay Perpendicular-style arcade, late 19th-century benches, a Gothic-style communion rail, and a reredos depicting The Last Supper. The roof is a two-bay king-post design with cusped tracery to the spandrels and cusped windbraces. A finely carved Perpendicular-style screen with cusped open tracery and carved foliate friezes separates it from the nave. The nave contains four-bay Perpendicular-style arcades and four-bay king-post roofs in the aisles; the central nave has a four-bay crown-post roof. A carved wooden Perpendicular-style pulpit, a fine brass eagle lectern dated 1881, and late 19th-century benches with carved ends occupy the space. A tall 15th-century archway with engaged shafts connects the nave to the west tower.

Memorials throughout the church include a wall tablet to Ralph Wenwood (died 1799) in the south chapel with a swag surround; an urn on a simple wall tablet to Charlotte, Duchess of Somerset (died 1773); and a very fine monument to Sir William Chaloner (died 1615) and his two wives (died 1603 and 1615), featuring a heraldic achievement over a baldachino with curtains held open by flanking figures and kneeling figures of Sir William and wife at prayer. The chancel holds a brass to Mary Litcott (died 1599). The south aisle contains three early 19th-century tablets and a sarcophagus-type memorial to Thomas Bentley (died 1780), partner to potter Josiah Wedgwood. The north aisle has early and mid-19th-century wall tablets, including one with a mourning angel leaning on an urn. Early 19th-century wall tablets and an early 18th-century architectural monument stand at the west end of the nave. The west tower contains 18th and 19th-century wall tablets, including a memorial to Richard Taylor (died 1698) with an urn on a tassellated swag surround held by cherubs; a memorial to Richard Taylor (died 1716) set in a Corinthian aedicule with heraldic cartouche flanked by figures of Father Time and Angel of Death; a memorial to Charles Holland the actor (died 1769) with a bust on an obelisk and epitaph by Daniel Garrick; a memorial to James Howard (died 1669) with a flaming urn on an ionic aedicule with pulvinated inscription panel; a memorial to Thomas Plucknett (died 1721) with a broken segmental pediment and ionic aedicule; a memorial to John Taylor (died 1729) with an open pediment bearing a heraldic achievement in the tympanum over an ionic aedicule; a tablet with a medallion portrait of Thomas Tomkins (died 1816); a pedimented wall tablet to Charles Barnevett (died 1695); and a rectangular fluted tablet to John Beckwith (died 1815).

The stained glass is late 19th-century work by Clayton and Bell. The east window of the south chapel contains glass from the clerestory of Cologne Cathedral.

Subsidiary features include 19th-century squared and coursed limestone walls attached to the east end of the church, with overthrow arches over two wrought-iron gates. An inscription panel records that the wall was rebuilt in 1831 and again in 1884. A reset 17th-century tablet records that the first wall on the site was built in 1623 at the charge of Lord Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford.

The architect H S Goodhart-Rendel described the church as "one of the best churches imaginable of its type in rich refined Perpendicular."