Church of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

This church dates from the 14th century, though it incorporates a 13th-century chancel and transept arches. The 15th century saw the addition of the tower and south porch, while the chancel was partly rebuilt during restoration in 1843. The building is constructed of dressed sandstone with a stone slate roof, except for the porch which has a stone slab roof.

The plan comprises a west tower, three-bay nave with north aisle, south porch, south transept, chancel and north chapel. The tower is two-staged, set on a triple-chamfered plinth with diagonal buttresses. It features a pointed three-light west window and four paired louvred bell-openings, all with panel tracery and head-stopped hoodmoulds. North and west clock faces sit beneath the bell stage. A south-east vice with slits penetrates the tower. A belfry string course runs around the top, above which sits a corbel table decorated with masks, fleurons and grotesques. The octagonal spire is recessed behind an embattled parapet, pierced at the south-east corner by a quatrefoil. Grotesque waterspouts and a cockerel weathervane complete the tower.

The north aisle's west window has two lights with geometric tracery beneath a coved hoodmould. The south porch is gabled with diagonal buttresses and has a double-chamfered pointed opening. A heraldic shield carved with early 15th-century arms of Hillesthorpe appears in the gable apex. The porch interior features a rib-vaulted roof. The pointed south door is enriched with fleurons and heads (some renewed) in continuous mouldings, with both entrances set beneath head-stopped hoodmoulds. The south door itself is reinforced on bifurcated C-hinges, with a trefoil-headed niche above. A square-headed three-light south window features mouchettes.

The north aisle sits on a double-chamfered plinth. It has a blocked pointed doorway with coved hoodmould at its west end, three original square-headed two-light Perpendicular windows and a similar east window. The shallow-gabled transept stands on a chamfered plinth with diagonal buttresses and a three-light Perpendicular window beneath a coved hoodmould, with a sill band. The chancel's south side shows blocked earlier openings and an inserted priest's door to the east of a two-light geometrical window. A three-light geometric east window lights the chancel. Coped gables with gablets terminating in crosses finish the nave, chancel, porch and transept.

Internally, the tower arch is pointed and double-chamfered beneath a coved hoodmould, with corbelled-out tower stairs on each side. The arcade comprises wide, double-chamfered pointed arches on octagonal columns and responds. Column bases are carved with scallop shells while capitals alternate between fleurons and rosettes. A continuous hoodmould runs on corbel heads. The pointed, chamfered chancel arch sits on corbels beneath a head-stopped hoodmould, as does the similar arch to the south transept. The north aisle projects beyond the nave to form a chapel north of the chancel. At the chancel's east end stand two ogee-headed canopied niches, the northern one corbelled on a carved figure, along with an aumbry, piscina and partly-blocked squint. A plain tub font occupies the interior.

A Jubilee clock dates to 1897. Legard hatchments appear on the nave's south wall. The fine low-pitched roof features ridge pieces, principals and purlins resting on moulded ties with windbraces.

The transept serves as a Legard mortuary chapel, blocked off from the nave by a carved screen. On its west wall stands an illegible 18th-century aedicule tablet surmounted by a flaming urn and oil lamps. The east wall holds a Baroque monument to John Legard (died 1678) with putti. Several wall tablets throughout commemorate members of the Legard family, made by Fisher and Skelton of York. A tablet by Deare of Rome commemorates William Wilson (died 1792), described as "an honest, industrious, sober ploughman ..... who adorned the garden" of the Legards.

The stained glass includes a nave south window signed by Capronnier, a good Transfiguration window of 1868 in the north aisle, and a pretty transept window depicting three Legard sisters. The east window is said to be by Wailes.