Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

Parish church dating from the 15th century, with extensive later alterations and additions. The church comprises a west tower, two-bay nave, south porch, chancel, and a memorial chapel set into the hillside.

The tower is constructed of squared and coursed red sandstone, largely rebuilt in 1887. It is crenellated with diagonal buttresses and renewed merlons. The bell openings are trefoil-headed single lights with louvres, below which is a square-headed lancet. A string course runs across the tower, with a three-light west window and west door below.

The nave is roughcast, while the chancel is of squared and irregularly coursed iron stone. The memorial chapel, added in 1931, employs Ham stone dressing. All sections have slate roofs with coped verges to the porch only.

The south porch was rebuilt in 1725. It is single storey and gabled, with three-light windows flanking a depressed chamfered pointed arch opening. A slate stone inscribed "This wall and porch was newley built in 1725" is set to the right of the porch, alongside a tablet to John Goodwing, died 1774. The porch contains a medieval studded plank door with a 14th or 15th century handle plate, and a sundial dated 1855.

The chancel features a two-light cinquefoil-headed window under a hoodmould. The east window is three lights. The chapel has a narrow recessed tomb bay with a gable end displaying a lancet flanking window in the form of a cross. Three lancets on the north front have rusticated surrounds. An arched head cuts a string band which returns to the west gable at the base of a tall lancet above a ribbed door with rusticated surround and coat of arms above. A lateral flight of steps with retaining wall provides access. Two three-light windows light the nave.

The interior is rendered, with Ham stone ashlar and cement facing in the chapel. The tower arch is unmoulded with jambs cut by a doorway giving access to a pulpit set in the roodscreen. The nave and chancel have plastered barrel vault roofs; the chancel has only axial ribs and bosses, while the nave has only a roof ridge rib and bosses. The chapel has an open ribbed roof. A moulded compartment ceiling covers the tower.

A five-bay fan-vaulted screen, much restored, contains the pulpit. A wooden gallery is carried on two pairs of columns.

The chancel retains remains of medieval stained glass in the north window. The south window glass is said to be 16th-century French. A window to a child of the Luard family, died 1891, is said to be by Morris and Company. The font is a square Purbeck marble example with arcaded sides.

The Herbert memorial chapel was completed in 1931 to designs by Sir Edwin Lutyens. It contains a chest tomb with effigy of A N H Molyneux Herbert of Pixton Park, died 1923, carved by Cecil de Banquiere Howard of Paris, beneath a wooden canopy designed by Lutyens. The canopy employs a motif of a cross with circles in the angles, repeated in the leading of apricot-coloured tinted glass. The chancel side of the canopy has six painted panels with coats of arms above a coved cornice, with cresting on the chapel front. A regimental sword in a billeted frame hangs on the west wall above the effigy. Doors in the west and south walls provide access to the area behind the tomb.

The interior contains a Jacobean altar table, two 17th-century joint stools, and branch candelabra. A tablet in the tower commemorates Robert Norris, rector, died 1708.

The church underwent significant alterations in the late 19th century: the porch was restored in 1890, the tower arch was opened, two new windows were added to the north side of the nave, other windows were reglazed, and the font was restored, all under the direction of architect C H Samson. In 1889 the church was reseated. In 1907 the chancel was panelled and a new gallery with organ was added, with a ceiling inserted in the tower.

The porch, no longer in use, contains a late medieval poor chest and remains of stocks with the upper half restored.