Church Of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

A parish church of Norman origin, with the chancel and lower stage of the tower dating to the 13th century. The church was enlarged with the addition of aisles in the 15th century, then substantially restored in 1836 when the aisles were extended two bays to the west, the roofs were renewed, the interior was reseated, and a south porch was added. The gallery and screen were removed during this 1836 restoration.

The exterior is built of squared and coursed local stone, with dressed chert to the north porch. The south porch uses banded squared and coursed local limestone and chert with Ham stone dressings. The roofs are slate with coped verges, and the aisles have monopitch lead roofs.

The church plan comprises a four-stage crenellated west tower, a five-bay aisled nave, north and south chapels, and a chancel. The tower features diagonal buttresses to its first stage, string courses, and gargoyles. The bell-openings are two-light trefoil-headed louvred openings, with two single light openings below. A small east door with a depressed chamfered head opens from the tower. A polygonal stair turret in the south-east corner rises in four decreasing stages above the tower, crenellated with moulded cornices and quatrefoil openings—four to the lower stage and one above. Stepped buttresses rise halfway up the lower stage, and the tower has a moulded plinth.

The aisles have 19th-century three-light windows at the west end, both crenellated with moulded cornices that were added when the aisle roofs were lowered. The south front reuses a three-light window to the left of the single-storey diagonally buttressed porch, which has a moulded arched opening and an inner doorway with a 19th-century door. A gargoyle sits in the porch, and three-light windows flank a buttress to the right. The south chapel has three-light windows to its south and east elevations. At the junction with the chancel, a section of wall is cut back to accommodate a priest's door. The chancel's south side has a two-light window, and its east wall has a four-light window. A two-light window appears on the north front. The north chapel has three-light windows with a depressed chamfered arch head to the priest's door, and a hexagonal crenellated stair turret with three-light windows flanking a buttress.

The north porch is a single-storey structure, crenellated with bosses and diagonally buttressed. It has a moulded pointed arch opening, a 19th-century Tudor-style doorway and door, and a 19th-century three-light window to the right.

Internally, the walls are rendered. The arcades are of standard hollow-moulded Perpendicular style, with the two western bays copied in this style. At the north-west corner, where the aisles were extended in the 19th century, there are two Norman capitals and one column with an attached capital, evidencing the church's earlier construction. The pointed tower arch is chamfered in three orders, with its lower part rebuilt.

A Perpendicular-style oak screen with a door, dated 1938, divides the nave from the chancel. The chancel arch is moulded in Perpendicular style. Moulded arches with trefoil-headed panelled jambs connect the chancel and chapels, while Perpendicular depressed moulded arches separate the aisles from the chapels. Hagioscopes are set diagonally to provide views of the chapel altars from the nave.

The south wall features a chamfered pointed arch opening to a roodstair doorway, with an arched opening above and stone stairs within. A similar opening exists on the north wall but is blocked, with a memorial tablet positioned above it.

The 19th-century roofs feature crown posts in the nave, monopitch in the aisles, king posts in the chapels, and archbraced roofs carried on corbels in the chancel.

The chancel contains a pointed arch with a double roll-moulded piscina. A console table of stone, supported on brackets carved with faces, is probably composed of reused stonework and is decorated with Minton tiles. A piscina also exists in the south chapel, now used as the vestry.

A fan-vaulted rood screen was reconstructed in 1921 from an original screen of around 1480, which had been dismantled in the mid-19th century. The 1921 reconstruction is dated in memory of those who died in the First World War. A pulpit has been composed from sections of the rood screen.

The church contains a circular Saxon font and an octagonal Perpendicular font. Notable memorials include a white marble convex cartouche draped with pettish heads commemorating Johannes Flood, who died in 1714; a white marble tablet with a terrazzo surround erected in 1757 to members of the Banner family; a similar tablet with an open pediment, volutes and putti below, commemorating the Reverend Joel Smith, who died in 1758; and a tablet with a draped urn commemorating the Reverend Christopher Tatchell, who died in 1793, possibly by King of Bath. An oil painting on wood depicts King David playing the harp. The east window contains 19th-century stained glass, and the eastern two bays of the aisles have coloured glass.