Church of St Nicholas

Church of St Nicholas

This Grade I listed church is constructed from local red sandstone grading into conglomerate, with some areas tending to grey. The dressings are generally of the same sandstone, except for the north east, north west and south east windows of the chancel, which have yellow sandstone dressings.

The church comprises a nave with two aisles and a clerestory, a separate chancel, a west tower, and a south porch.

The lower nave walls are completely covered by the aisles, which begin in line with the east gable and extend almost to the west wall of the tower. The north aisle has five bays separated by wide stepped buttresses, each bay containing a single light window with a trefoil head. The bay against the tower is wider and contains a door with a 3-centred head. The aisle has corner buttresses and coped gables with a lean-to roof. Its east wall features a 2-light window with a quatrefoil over it. The south aisle is similar in arrangement, except the tower bay is blind and the second window bay contains the south porch. The porch is gabled with a semi-circular headed archway and square headed windows in its flanking walls. The most easterly bay of the south aisle is also blind. Its east wall has a 3-light window with sharply pointed lights stepped within the frame; only the central light has a trefoil head.

The nave clerestory has five trefoil headed lights on either side, with a coped gable and apex cross. The east wall above the chancel roof is blind.

The west tower is square and rises in three stages, with the aisle roofs reaching well up the second stage and the nave roof well up the third. The west door has a 2-centred head with a dripmould over it and Victorian doors. Above this is a large 4-light reticulated window. An off-set runs around the tower above this window. The third stage may be later and features two tiers of slit windows on each face. A battlemented parapet on corbels crowns the tower. The octagonal spire has a 2-light gabled bell opening in-line with each face of the tower, with a roll at each angle of the spire. The spire carries a ball and a weathercock dated 1792 at a height of 180 feet (54.9 metres).

The chancel has a 2-light window with cusping on the south wall together with a plain single light window and the priest's door with a hollow chamfered round arch; both are Victorian rebuilds. The north wall has another 2-light and a single light window of similar design. The east wall has a 3-light window with trefoil heads to the equal lights topped by a sexfoil flanked by trefoils. This window is very close in design to the east window of the Church of St Oudoceus at Llandogo. The chancel has a coped gable with an apex cross.

Interior

The interior is plastered and painted throughout, and the floor was repaved in the 1992 restoration. The arcades are sharply pointed with tall octagonal piers. The tall chancel arch was heightened in 1893 and is similar in design to the taller tower arch. Historical photographs in the church show that the chancel arch originally had an almost triangular head springing from a point appreciably lower than the present arch; the mouldings appear to be the same as those used in the replacement.

The nave ceiling is flat and coffered with diagonal boarding above the ribs, comprising four panels across. The aisle roofs are Victorian with arch braced principals on stone corbels between each window. Two of the north aisle windows have cusped rere-arches. The chancel is ceiled with a painted waggon vault dating to 1893.

The main door is dated 1595 (the date is painted on the inner face). It is of plank construction with decorative battens applied over long strap hinges, though the outer face is covered by a matchboard sleeve. The pews date to 1893. The pulpit is said to be dated 1640 but was reconstructed in 1893. The choir stalls are from 1903. The communion rail is early 18th century with turned balusters.

There are two fonts: one free-standing and early medieval, the other recut and later. An excellent 17th century stone sundial dated 1689 was originally in the centre of the village and was removed from the school in 1895; a concrete cast of it also exists. A Coat-of-Arms of Charles II dated 1683 is displayed over the west door.

The chancel windows on either side are a memorial to Henry Arden, vicar of Trellech 1887-94. The east window is a memorial to Henry Crompton Robert, died 1891. The church contains three bells said to be dated 1642, 1704, and 1704, plus three new bells, all installed in a new steel frame in 2000.