Church Of Saint Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

This is a parish church dating from the 12th century, enlarged around 1200, remodelled in the early 14th and 15th centuries, and restored in 1876 by Ewan Christian at a cost of £1000. The building is constructed of flint and ragstone with a plain tiled roof.

The church comprises a chancel with chapels, a nave and aisles, a south-west tower, and a south porch. The three-stage tower is built of knapped and coursed flints with undercut string courses, offset angle buttresses rising to the top, and a south-western stair turret. It rises to an octagonal top stage. The jambs of an unexecuted window survive in the tower. The west nave window was restored in the late 20th century to an exact copy of the original, a three-light design with trefoils and an ogee quatrefoil amid intersecting tracery. A two-light 14th-century window on the south tower wall features cinquefoiled heads and a cusped ogee head. The tower is by the same hand as Herne Church, which like St Nicholas was a chapelry of Reculver until 1310.

The restored 14th-century porch has a rib and stud door set in a hollow-chamfered and wave-moulded surround. The nave and aisles are separately roofed, both with battlements, and the aisles have a plinth and string course with offset buttresses on the north side. The 15th-century windows are of two lights. The chancel and chapels have separate gabled roofs and originally featured lancet windows, of which one survives in the south chapel along with the jambs of a three-light east window. These were replaced by 14th- and 15th-century fenestration, including a five-light east window with intersecting tracery, mouchettes, arched transoms, and hood mould. Two chamfered arches below the east window possibly originally belonged to a crypt.

In the interior, the tower displays hollow-chamfered ribs springing for unexecuted vaulting, resting on heads and crouching animals. The arches of the nave and south aisle have complex mouldings combining roll and hollow mouldings with a continuous intermediate moulding. Octagonal responds with chamfered bases and moulded capitals support these arches.

The nave contains a 14th-century north arcade of five double-chamfered arches on octagonal piers with moulded bases and capitals. The south arcade has four bays: the western arch is a cramped version of the north arcade, while the other three bays date from around 1200, featuring round-arched piers and eastern responds. The eastern arch displays angle rolls, dogtooth and archlets with a crocketed capital influenced by Canterbury Cathedral, and a spurred base. The other two capitals are carved with heads in the Green Man motif. The roof is partly of king-post construction and partly a boarded roof of the 18th century. A blocked rood door extends half across the south arcade and half onto the nave east wall.

The early 13th-century chancel arch has a beaded roll-moulded arch on square responds with nook shafts, square abaci, and bell capitals. The lean-to aisles include a 14th-century chamfered arch to the south chapel and a 12th-century arch to the north chapel. The north chapel's east window reveal has been brought down to ground level and features a strutted king-post roof. The south chapel has a string course and a roof of three crown posts. The chancel contains a two-bay north arcade from around 1200, featuring a round pier with scalloped capital and unmoulded pointed arches, plus a single contemporary arch to the south chapel on simple imposts with an embattled wall plate, tie beams, and strutted collar beams.

The fittings include triple sedilia in the chancel with simple chamfered elliptical heads, a cusped and moulded piscina, a hollow piscina with undercut hood in the south chapel, and a small round-headed piscina in the north chapel. Three-bay ogee-traceried screens serve the north and south chapels. An altar fashioned from a table of around 1600 has bulbous cup and covet legs. The pulpit stands on a stem with enriched two-tier panels, the upper being arcaded. Its backboard features an enriched arched panel in a grooved architectural surround with cornice and enriched frieze and side brackets, with a central cartouche bearing the date and initials "1615 IS:EE". A brass chandelier with a feathered plaster ceiling rose, crown, and mitre is attached to a chain. A second brass chandelier of two tiers of eight branches over ten is inscribed "The gift of Mrs Elizabeth Hannis 1757 - Wm. Gyler Fecit". A ladder stair in the south aisle leads to an upper room over the porch. The east window glass dates from 1912 and was created by T.F. Curtis of Ward and Hughes.

The church contains several significant monuments and brasses. In the north chapel is a brass of Valontyne Edvarod, died 1559, showing figures of Valontyne, his wives Joane and Agnes, a second husband of one of them, and several children, with 19-inch main figures. The brass is partly a palimpsest of a 14th-century knight brass. Margaret Willoughby, died 1627, is commemorated in the north chapel with a black and white marble wall tablet featuring protruding bosses and a cornice. Elizabeth Dear, died 1721, has a grey marble wall tablet in the chancel with a bolection-moulded panel, coved and gadrooned base, and a winged cherub. Edward Hannis, died 1750, is memorialised in the north aisle with a white and yellow marble monument with crossed palms on a bracketed base, a scrolled plaque, pedimented crest, and a putto bearing a portrait medallion. The Napleton family, commemorated up to 1755, has a brown and white marble wall monument with an obelisk-shaped background, enriched bracketed base with cartouche, scrolled plaque, pedimented pediment, and gadrooned urn. Edward Bridges, died 1759, has a tomb chest of black and white marble in the north chapel with a black table slab featuring gadrooned, moulded, and enriched corner piers. Thomas Bridges, died 1777, is commemorated in the nave with a white and coloured marble wall tablet on an enriched bracketed base, winged cherubs, a cornice with urn finials, and a garlanded achievement. Several other early 19th-century wall monuments of note survive, some by Longley of Canterbury and of considerable quality. The arms of George III and charity boards dated 1772 hang by the south door.