Church Of St Nicholas

The Church of St Nicholas is a parish church with a late 15th or early 16th century west tower, and the remainder of the fabric dating to 1850 and 1878-79. The chancel was refitted in 1911. The 1878-9 work was by T.H. Wyatt, and the chancel refit by Wippell and Co. The tower is constructed of greensand ashlar, while the rest of the church is flint with stone and ashlar dressings. It has tiled roofs with stone copings.

The church includes a nave, chancel, west tower, north and south aisles, a south chapel, and a north chapel/organ chamber/vestry. The two-stage west tower has a plinth and embattled parapet, a south vice turret, diagonal four-stage buttresses, corner gargoyles to the parapet string, a moulded four-centred west doorway with a square surround, cusped spandrels, and a returned label. It features a pointed five-light Perpendicular west window with a returned label, two-light square-headed belfry windows with Perpendicular tracery and wooden louvres, and a five-light Perpendicular pointed south aisle window.

The south aisle has two-light windows with square heads, Perpendicular tracery, and returned labels, and an east window of three lights with a pointed head and returned label. The chancel south wall includes two pointed two-light windows with curvilinear tracery and returned labels. The east chancel window is of five lights with Perpendicular tracery and a returned label. The north chapel/organ chamber/vestry’s windows consist of one and two lights with Perpendicular tracery and square heads with returned labels; the east wall window is of two lights with a pointed head and Perpendicular tracery, possibly a 15th-century reset. The north aisle’s north wall has windows of two and three lights with curvilinear tracery under square heads with returned labels, and the west wall window is pointed with three lights and Perpendicular tracery. A gabled south porch features a pointed, moulded doorway and 19th-century sculpted figures in the apex.

Three bay pointed nave arcades are supported on octagonal piers with moulded caps. A moulded, pointed chancel arch has marble attached respond shafts. The heavily moulded, pointed chancel arcades have clustered marble shafts. There is a pointed tower arch of two chamfered orders dying into responds. The nave and north aisle roofs have hammer-beams, arch-braced collars with king-posts, and wind-braced purlins. The south aisle’s roof follows a similar design but features struts instead of a king-post and lacks wind-bracing. The chancel and south chapel have ribbed plastered roofs. The chancel is faced in marble and includes a marble pulpit with open, ogee-headed panels, a 19th-century piscina, and a circular font, possibly dating to the 13th century, featuring a roll-moulded base on a cylindrical stem and a moulded pedestal.