Saint Nicholas Court

Saint Nicholas Court is a Grade II* listed house located on Wade Court Road, dating back to the 14th century with a crypt and a house from the 16th century that has been altered in the early and late 18th century and early 19th century. The building features a timber frame that is rendered and extended in painted brick, topped with a plain tiled roof. It has an L-shaped plan and stands two storeys high, with rusticated quoins and paired modillion eaves leading to a moulded wooden parapet, which has a rendered early 18th-century shaped gable at the right end. There is a hipped projecting wing to the left, with stacks located at the end right, centre left, and front left.

The first floor has five glazing bar sash windows, while the ground floor features two tripartite glazing bar sashes and one glazing bar sash above one tripartite sash on the left wing. The central entrance door consists of six raised and fielded panels within a moulded surround, topped by an elliptical canopy.

Inside, the frame is visible, showcasing chamfered and stopped beams. There is a coved over-mantel above the inglenook, a clasped purlin roof, and moulded doorways. The doors are fitted with H and L hinges, and there are elliptical arched passage-doorways, fitted cupboards, kitchen shelving, and several marble fireplaces, all dating from the late 18th or early 19th century. An early 19th-century room contains an elliptical screen and two recessed Gothick margin-light windows. The stair halls feature a moulded plaster cornice with a hop motif.

Beneath the house, there are cellars and a vaulted brick passage that leads north, down a flight of steps, to an underground 14th-century chamber made of tooled chalk blocks, which also forms part of the passage. This chamber has a cruciform plan with a central quadripartite rib-vaulted ceiling, a chamfered string course, and ogee-cusped recesses in the end walls of two wings, while the other end wall has been rebuilt in brick with elliptically headed recesses. This chamber is likely the crypt of a demolished chapel, associated with Petronella, the widow of John of St Nicholas, who was granted a licence to hear mass at her house in 1327.