Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

A church of medieval origin, substantially dating from around 1200, with significant additions and alterations spanning the 14th to 19th centuries. The building comprises a chancel and aisled nave with a south transept and west tower. It is constructed of uncoursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, and features a gabled 20th-century tile roof.

The chancel dates from the early 14th century and is decorated in the Decorated style. It has hood moulds with anthropomorphic stops over a 4-light reticulated east window and 2-light windows in the 2-bay side walls. The south doorway is pointed and chamfered. The chancel roof is of late 19th-century date and features an early 14th-century cornice ornamented with ballflower.

The north aisle dates from the 15th century. A blocked round-headed doorway of around 1200 survives with a keel-moulded arch and trumpet-scalloped capitals (the shafts have been lost). The doorway is flanked by a much-restored early 16th-century three-light window and a 15th-century two-light ogee-headed window. Three-light Perpendicular windows are present in the end walls. The north chapel contains a wall tablet with broken segmental pediment to Thomas White, d.1664, 17th and 18th-century ledger stones, some to the White family, a 17th-century heraldic achievement, and a 15th-century niche and corbel.

The south wall of the nave was rebuilt in the mid-19th century with a 2-light window and a 3-light south transept window. The south transept contains three reset late 17th and early 18th-century finely-carved wall monuments and 18th-century ledger stones, together with an incised marble wall tablet to George Dale, the Oxford anatomist, d.1625, which shows a demi-figure of Dale pointing at a skull.

The south porch was designed by J.C. Buckler and erected in 1867–8. It is steeply pitched and gabled, with a painted moulded doorway flanked by tall pinnacles. A similar doorway serves as the south door within the porch. The left side wall is reinforced with closely-set buttresses and gables.

The west tower was rebuilt in 1809 and underwent further reconstruction after the fire of 1893. The original lower stage survives with a 15th-century four-centred doorway to double-leaf plank doors. The octagonal upper stages date from 1809 and post-1893, featuring trefoil-headed lancets, a reset 15th-century cinquefoil-headed light, and a pyramidal roof of 1893.

The nave has a late 19th-century roof. A round-headed west door of around 1200 has a keel-moulded arch over engaged columns with stiff-leaf capitals. A 15th-century four-bay arcade with octagonal shafts leads to the north aisle, which contains a late 19th-century font set on a 15th-century octagonal shaft.

The interior contains several important monuments and furnishings. In the chancel north wall is a monument to Lady Katherine Gordon, the White Rose of Scotland and widow of Perkin Warbeck, d.1527. This comprises an elaborately-carved tomb chest set within an arched recess, much restored after 1893. The chancel contains much-restored early 14th-century sedilia with late 19th-century shafts. A finely-carved piscina is set in a Decorated canopy, and a 15th-century credence table sits on an octagonal shaft with trefoiled blind panels. The reredos has a restored vine-leaf cornice broken by an octagonal 15th-century tabernacle.

In the north chapel is a monument to Sir John Golafre, d.1442, with a reclining effigy of Sir John laid on a chest tomb with a brattished cornice and heraldic shields. Open arches with cusped spandrels expose a gruesome cadaver, lying on a shroud tied at the head and pulled back at the sides to reveal the corpse. Sir John willed that a chantry priest be employed in his chapel and be accommodated with five almsmen in a newly erected building, now the White Hart Inn.

Late 19th-century benches, pulpit and lectern were installed during the restoration following the fire of 1893. A drawing of 1809 depicts a three-storey tower with Decorated windows. Records show that the tower was partly demolished and rebuilt in 1809 and again after the fire damaged the church in 1893.