Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

A church of 12th-century and 15th-century date, with 17th-century fittings and a restoration undertaken in 1895. The building is constructed in sandstone ashlar with lead roofs.

The church comprises a 3-stage west tower, a 5-bay nave with a south porch, and a 3-bay chancel. The tower employs 12th-century stone reused in its lower stages, with a plinth featuring a chamfered offset and diagonal buttresses that have many offsets to the west. The 15th-century ground-floor west window has 3 cinque-foiled lights set in a chamfered 4-centred arch. A single-light louvred south opening occupies the first floor. A string course runs below the 15th-century belfry, which has on each side a 2-light cinque-foiled louvred flat-headed chamfered opening. A weathervane crowns the roof.

The nave is 12th-century in origin. The gabled south porch has a chamfered triangular-headed doorway with a renewed lintel dated 1878 and hood mould. Inside the porch stands a 12th-century round-arched south doorway with 3 orders, the outer 2 decorated with chevron ornament, spiral capitals and shafts (one missing); an outward-opening old door with original sneck and bolts survives. The south wall features 19th-century 2-light Romanesque-style windows, one to the left of the porch and two to the right. The parapet has a 17th-century finial at each end. On the north side, a blocked 12th-century chamfered doorway with round arch, imposts and dripmould can be seen, along with a small Romanesque window.

The 12th-century chancel has a priest's doorway matching that of the porch, but bearing an almost illegible inscription on the lintel, recorded as "1683". This doorway is flanked by flat-headed windows of 2 ogee-headed lights with trefoil cusping. The chancel parapet is plain. A 2-light east window with segmental-pointed head, renewed in the 19th century, lights the east end. A Romanesque window and a later single-light window occupy the north side.

Internally, a chamfered segmental-pointed tower arch spans between nave and tower. A wide 12th-century round chancel arch with imposts divides the nave from the chancel; to its left lies a squint-like opening. The east window and priest's doorway in the chancel have Romanesque splays. The chancel contains a trefoil ogee piscina with a new bowl and a flat roof with moulded principal beams. The nave has a 19th-century shallow king-post roof with struts to the principal purlins.

Wall monuments include one on the north wall of the chancel to Francis Goulton, died 1737, of Highthorne, executed by Taylor of York, and another to Robert Pearson MA, died 1805, Archdeacon of Cleveland, Master of Coxwold Grammar School and Minister of this parish, inscribed on a large white stone tablet in a wooden frame. On the north wall of the nave is a monument to Robert Midgley, died 1761, who served for 53 years as Master of Coxwold Grammar School and Minister of this parish; this comprises a black inscription tablet in a grey marble frame above a moulded base with panelled dado and a broken pediment containing a cartouche with coat of arms.

The fittings include a 17th-century altar rail with tapering turned balusters and knob finials flanking a central gate. Choir stalls are made up from 17th-century woodwork, possibly derived from a screen. A 17th-century pulpit features a bolection-framed panel, a tester with ogee cupola, and a 13th-century lead coffin cross mounted on the rear panel. 17th-century box pews with knob finials, partly assembled from screens with arcaded frieze, occupy the body of the church. An octagonal font with thick stem and broached base bears a 17th-century cover with 4 ogee ribs and an inscription reading "BAPTIZETVR VNVS QVISQVE VESTRVM NOMINE IESV CHRISTI. ACTA 2, 38". A royal coat of arms dated 1830 hangs above the north door, and an oak parish chest stands near the south door.