Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

The Church of St Nicholas is a parish church dating from the 12th century, with significant alterations made in the 13th to 15th centuries, and further alterations around 1820-30 for the Smyth-Pigott family. The building comprises a west tower, nave, south porch, north and south chapels, chancel, and vestry. It is constructed of coursed rubble with freestone dressings and has lead roofs.

The west tower consists of three stages with diagonal buttresses and an embattled parapet with pinnacles. The bell chamber contains two-light openings with trefoil-headed lights. The west window is of three lights with moulded surround and hoodmould featuring lozenge stops, and the west door is similarly detailed. A projecting polygonal stair tower to the north-east has an embattled parapet.

The nave features three-light Perpendicular style windows with cusped tracery heads and square hoodmoulds. The south porch and chapel share a single pitched roof with carved demi-figures as kneelers. The chapel has three-light windows with cusped ogee heads and a double ogee moulded surround to the outer doorway. An east window to the chapel is blocked, and there is a doorway with a brick ogee head.

The chancel has two lancet windows, one with a cinquefoil head, and a two-light Perpendicular style east window with cusped ogee heads. The north chapel contains an early 19th-century four-light window. The south doorway dates from the early to mid-12th century, though probably re-cut, with thin columns featuring square scalloped capitals and a zigzag moulded arch.

Internally, the tower arch is of two wave moulding. Double chamfered arches open into the north and south chapels. The font is 12th-century with a circular bowl decorated with small blank arches and a fluted underside.

The pulpit is highly elaborate work in Perpendicular style, constructed of ashlar with blank panels of two-lights with cusped heads. The decorative base comprises foliage and quatrefoil bands, with a panelled stem. Three friezes contain quatrefoils and foliage, and the elaborate vaulted canopy features cusping and pinnacles. Behind the pulpit is a moulded doorway with a four-centred head.

The interior contains box pews in Gothick style in the chancel. There is a Gothick fireplace to the south of Pigott chapel, decorated with pinnacles and the Pigott arms. The reredos, dating to around 1820-30, is executed in elaborate Perpendicular style with quatrefoils, cusped ogee panels, canopy, and pinnacles. An early to mid-18th-century brass chandelier is suspended in the church.

The stained glass is particularly notable, with work by W.R. Eginton dating from around 1824-29 for J.H. Smyth-Pigott. In the chancel, the east window depicts St Peter and St Paul with the Holy Spirit as a dove; the north-east window shows St Nicholas and a kneeling child; the north-west window contains two nimbed bishops; the south-west window depicts an ecclesiastic wearing a skull cap, probably Thomas Coward; and the south-east window shows Edward the Confessor, with the head executed by R. Bell. In Pigott chapel, the glass depicts Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham flanking Edward I, with heraldry above. In the nave, glass shows Archbishop Chichele, William of Wykeham, and Thomas Mowbray with heraldry above.

The monuments include, in the nave, three funeral hatchments of the Pigott family dated 1727, 1794, and 1816, and Royal Arms of 1842. In Pigott chapel, a monument to Colonel John Pigott dates to around 1790 with inscribed dates of 1730, 1794, and later, rendered in coloured marbles with an inscribed plaque, urn, and Pigott arms. A marble plaque commemorates J. Pigott, died 1811, with a weeping woman and urn. A monument by Chantrey commemorates Wadham Pigott, died 1823, with an inscribed marble plaque showing a kneeling woman, draped urn on a pedestal, and the profiles of Pigott.

Two corbels in the chancel immediately west of the east windows are square in form and possibly served lenten purposes.