 Strange brick flying butresses
Handsome tower
I am not sufficiently au fait with church descriptions and
therefore turn to Sir Nikolaus Pevsner.....
ST NICHOLAS. Big C15 W tower. Along the base frieze of shields
and lozenges with the Crown of Thorns and hearts. Flushwork
panelling on the butresses and the battlements. Below the bell-openings
small square windows with a grille of very close, complex tracery,
chiefly consisting of small quatrefoils. West doorway with niches left
and right. C13 chancel with lancet windows. South aisle Perp, north aisle
of 1853. South porch with a front with plain flushwork panelling.
Wide nave canted towards the tower. Wide chancel. The south arcade has
quatrefoil piers with small raised ridges in the diagonals, Decorated
no doubt [c.1290 to c.1350]. When the north aisle was built the former
north windows were re-used, one Decorated with flowing tracery under a
two-centred arch, and two Perpendicular [c.1335-50 to c.1530] under
four-centred arches. It looks as if the wall piers of the same section
as the arcade are mediæval material too. But where can they have been?
Were there perhaps remains of a former north aisle? In 1853 three romantic
heads were placed on each wall pier and arched beams put in to run south
as well as east and west from them. The same was done in the south aisle,
only with rude wooden posts instead of the stone wall piers. At the east
end of the north aisle the wall below the window is treated as a
MONUMENT in three Gothic arched frames, of which the central one refers
to Mrs Clissold, the rector's wife, who died in 1852. So perhaps the
whole aisle is a memorail to her. - FONT. Octagonal, Perp, bowl only,
with six flowers and two shields (disused). - CANDLESTICKS. Two with
Jacobean carving abd little obelisks. - STAINED GLASS. St Nicholas, north
aisle. - Canopy in south aisle east window. - Christ carrying the Cross,
by Royal William of Wrentham, 1850. By him also perhaps also what remains
of small figures in the tracery heads of several windows. - PLATE. Cup
c.1660. - BRASS. Ele Bowet, c.1400, a 30 in. figure. |
