Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

A parish church at Whitchurch, this building dates principally from the late 12th century, with alterations made in the 13th and early 14th centuries and again in the 15th century. It underwent restoration in the 19th century.

The church comprises a nave, north porch, south chapel incorporated within a south transept, south aisle and porch, north transept, crossing tower and chancel. It is built in coursed squared rubble with freestone dressings and has plain tiled roofs with coped raised verges.

The central tower is unbuttressed with dressed quoins and rises to a pyramidal roof set back behind a plain parapet fitted with gargoyles. The bell chamber contains plain two-light pointed windows.

The nave has two 19th-century windows in the Geometrical style, each of two lights. The projecting gabled north porch features a pointed doorway in a hollow-step-ogee moulded surround beneath a hoodmould. The north transept has angle buttresses with off-sets and a three-light window with a lower central light capped by a quatrefoil above; all lights have cusped heads. The chancel contains plain and small lancet windows on the north side (one restored) and a three-light east window matching the north transept design. The south aisle has a 15th-century three-light Perpendicular style east window under a four-centred head, along with two- and three-light Perpendicular windows with plain and cusped ogee heads respectively, all under square dripmoulds. The projecting gabled south porch has a hollow-ogee moulded surround. The west windows of both the south aisle and nave are three-light Perpendicular style windows. The north doorway, though 12th century in origin, has been restored and features a continuous chamfered and roll moulded surround.

The north porch has a 15th-century arch-braced collar beam roof with an embattled wall-plate.

Internally, the south aisle has a three-bay arcade with piers of alternating hollows and shafts topped by circular caps, with hollow-chamfered four-centred arches. Both the nave and south aisle have late mediaeval wagon roofs with embattled wall-plates. The tower arches are pointed and stepped, springing from corbels with long stems and trumpet capitals—a thick one to the main arch and a thin one to the outer order. Those on the nave arch face outward into the nave, whilst the others face into the crossing.

The chancel features deep embrasures to the north and south windows, the latter opening into the chapel. The east window and north transept window have fine colonettes attached to the inside of the mullions, with the outer order enriched with leaf-moulded capitals. A 15th-century archway leads to the south chapel and is fitted with a carved wooden screen of cusped and traceried panels, blank in the lower part and open above, with a rosette frieze. The archway from the south aisle has a continuous ogee-hollow-ogee moulded surround. A Perpendicular style wooden screen with traceried and paired lower panels, an enriched frieze, triple open upper panels, an enriched vine frieze and pierced parapet separates the spaces; the main uprights have attached pinnacles.

The church contains several monuments. In the south chapel are two inscribed marble tablets to the Holbeach family by Lychyard of Keynsham, aedicular with panelled pilasters and triglyph frieze. Also in the chapel are monuments to the Colston family, the earliest dated 1739 and the latest 1847, with urn finials. In the nave is an inscribed marble plaque to Isaac Emery, died 1761, with a broken pediment.