Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St. Nicholas, Idbury

A parish church of 12th-century origin, substantially remodelled and extended in the 14th century, with late 19th-century restoration. The building is constructed of uncoursed limestone rubble with stone slate and lead roofs featuring stepped coped verges and moulded parapets. It comprises a nave and chancel with a bellcote at the junction, a north aisle, a north-west tower, and a south porch.

The tower, positioned at the west end and incorporated into the north aisle, dates from the late 14th century and rises in three stages. The lower stages on the west are roughcast. It features stepped angle buttresses to the north-west corner, moulded string courses with the lowest at the eaves level of the north aisle, and an embattled parapet with gargoyles on the north and south sides. The belfry contains stone slate-louvred two-light pointed cusped windows with quatrefoils to the apex and hoodmoulds. A narrow rectangular window sits immediately above the string course on the north side to the third stage. The west side has a pointed doorway with an apparently truncated cusped three-light pointed window directly above it, and a narrow round-headed window to the second stage.

On the south side of the nave, a moulded cornice marks the former eaves line. This is broken on the left by a tall square-headed late 15th-century window with two cinquefoil-headed lights and on the right by a similar window of three lights. A memorial to John Wilts (died 1798) with a carved head of an angel to the top is fixed to the wall to the left of the left window. Above the cornice are four late 15th-century clerestory windows with four-centred arches, panel tracery, and hoodmoulds; the westernmost window's hoodmould terminates in head-stops. Contemporary grotesque heads and gargoyles ornament the cornice of the parapet. A roughly central 14th-century gabled porch features a double-chamfered pointed outer arch dying into the jambs. The roughcast west wall of the nave contains an early 14th-century three-light window with reticulated tracery and hoodmould. A carved head of a bishop or mitred abbot decorates the cornice of the parapet. The outline of a former steep roof pitch is visible on the east wall, and a 14th-century bellcote to the apex has a segmental arch and crocketed pinnacles.

The north aisle's north side features a reset 12th-century doorway with a round-headed arch of three orders adorned with a band of zig-zag. Nook-shafts with chevron decoration and scalloped capitals support this. The tympanum, with a later infilled arch cut into it, displays a deep pattern of small circles and a hoodmould. An early 14th-century trefoil-headed lancet with hoodmould stands to the right, and a 19th-century integral lateral stack is immediately to the left. Two square-headed two-light windows of circa 1500 to the left feature straight bands of quatrefoils to their heads, with the right one restored. The east wall has an early 14th-century three-light window with intersecting cusped tracery; the main divisions have trefoil heads with trefoils and elongated quatrefoils in the spandrels.

The chancel sits on a stepped chamfered plinth. Its north side has an early 14th-century trefoil-headed lancet with hoodmould to the left. To the right is a three-light 15th-century window similar to those in the nave clerestory, infilled to the lower part, which lights a squint-passage projection (see interior description). The east wall features an early 14th-century pointed trefoil-headed window in three lights and a 19th-century foliated cross to the gable. The south side has a trefoil-headed lancet with hoodmould to the west and a 15th-century square-headed window with three cinquefoil-headed lights, mouchettes, and a label to the east.

Interior details include an image bracket or holy water stoup incorporated into a stone bench on the east side of the porch. The 14th-century pointed south doorway has one order of convex and one order of hollow moulding with a hoodmould, and a nail-studded plank door with strap hinges. An early 14th-century nave arcade in three bays features piers of filleted quatrefoil section with moulded plinth and capitals, and pointed arches with two orders of wave moulding. A 14th-century segmental-pointed chancel arch with an inner wave-moulded order dying into the jambs is possibly recut from an earlier arch. The tower cuts into the west bay of the arcade and has a pointed doorway with a nail-studded plank door and hoodmould in its west face. A doorway to the former rood loft stands to the east of the east bay of the arcade. A 15th-century diagonal squint-passage from the north aisle to the chancel has a ribbed vault and chamfered four-centred arches at each end. A late 15th-century cambered tie beam roof in four bays spans the nave, with arch-braced wall posts resting on carved stone corbels and blank stone shields at the wall-plate level. A probably 17th-century collar and tie beam roof covers the north aisle, and a 19th-century scissor-braced roof covers the chancel. A pointed cinquefoil-headed piscina with a credence shelf occupies the south wall of the chancel, with plain corbelled brackets to either side of the east window. A corbelled image bracket stands in the north-east corner of the aisle with a recessed image bracket immediately to the west. A 15th-century wooden screen in the chancel arch has ten one-light divisions with Perpendicular tracery patterns and rosettes to the ends. Fifteenth-century bench ends are reused in an early 20th-century pulpit. Early 19th-century box pews occupy the east end of the nave. A probably 17th-century communion table with dumpy turned balusters and a wooden funeral bier by the door to the tower are also present.

Fragments of medieval stained glass appear in the cusped heads of the clerestory window of the north aisle. Further 14th-century fragments are in the east window of the north aisle, including a mid-14th-century roundel depicting a female head.

Monuments include a brass plate to Thomas Hautin (died 1643) to the south of the chancel arch and a large memorial with a broken scroll pediment to John Logan (died 1637) on the north wall of the north aisle.