Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

A church of the 12th, 13th and 15th centuries, altered and restored in 1848 by R.C. Hussey at a cost of £3,000 and again restored by E.F. Law in 1860-1. The building is constructed in coursed squared limestone with ironstone and limestone dressings, beneath lead and copper roofs.

The church comprises a chancel, north chancel chapel, aisled nave, south porch and west tower. The 3-bay chancel features a 4-light east window with Perpendicular tracery, 3-light windows to the south with intersecting tracery, and a roll-moulded and chamfered priest's door to the south. String courses at the level of the springing of the arches of the priest's door and windows form hood moulds. Diagonal off-set buttresses and off-set buttresses between windows stand to the south. A 19th century vestry to the north has a 2-light east window and a lancet window to the north.

The north chancel chapel continues the north aisle and has two small rectangular 1-light windows to the north-east, one above the other. The chapel and aisle feature 3-light Perpendicular windows to the north with 4-centred heads, hood moulds and transoms at low level, below which they are blank. A blocked north door retains double wave mouldings and a hood mould. The aisle has a diagonal off-set buttress, a 3-light Perpendicular window to the west end with segmental head and hood mould, and a lean-to boiler room below.

The nave has a 5-window clerestory of 2-light windows with straight heads, foiled heads to the lights and hood moulds. The south aisle has a 3-light Perpendicular east window, 2-light windows to the south with ogee-arched heads, and a 2-light Perpendicular window to the west end with a straight head; all feature hood moulds. A many-moulded south door with an ogee-arched head and hood mould stands in a porch with a Tudor-arched doorway and double-leaf doors. Battlemented parapets crown the aisle and porch, with diagonal off-set buttresses.

The 3-stage west tower has a fine west door elaborately moulded with a deep and wide hollow chamfer, double-leaf doors and hood moulds. A blocked 2-light window to the middle stage south retains Perpendicular tracery and a hood mould. The 2-light bell-chamber openings have cinquefoil-headed lights. The tower sits on a hollow-chamfered plinth and is buttressed by diagonal off-set buttresses, crowned by a battlemented parapet. The nave, chancel and north aisle have overhanging eaves.

Internally, the chancel has a 2-bay arcade to the north chancel chapel with an octagonal pier and double-chamfered arches on corbels. The chancel arch, probably of 1848, is tripartite with 23 tall octagonal piers, a wide central arch and outer arches dying into the wall. The nave has 3-bay arcades: that to the north has an octagonal west pier and a 12th-century circular east pier with scalloped capital, with double-chamfered arches; that to the south has octagonal piers, carved head corbels at either end and double-chamfered arches.

An octagonal font with panelled stem and tracery patterns displays a bowl with pointed quatrefoils and shields. The church contains 19th-century box pews and wall-mounted oil lamps in the chancel. 19th and 20th-century stained-glass windows are present throughout.

The church contains several wall monuments: a brass to Agnes Ogle (died 1616), wife of Cuthbert Ogle; a stone and alabaster monument to Gabriel Clarke (died 1624) with a black marble inscription plate; a similar monument to Cuthbert Ogle (died 1633) with a cartouche of arms above, erected by his widow Beateris; a veined marble monument with slate inscription plate and cartouche of arms to John Barrow (died 1744) and his wife Anne (died 1757), erected by John Enston of Northampton and signed by Henry Cox; a slate monument to John Meal (died 1742), described as "Late Gardener / To His Grace the Duke of / Grafton / whome He served faithfully / At Wakefield Lodge / Sixteen Years"; and a slate monument with veined marble brackets and cornice to Joseph Scrivener (died 1808) and his wife Elizabeth (died 1780), signed Cockerill, Wappenham.