Church of St Nicholas

Details

WEYMOUTH

SY6683 MILL STREET, Broadwey 873-1/8/435 (North side) 12/12/53 Church of St Nicholas

GV II

Anglican parish church. Medieval fragments, including C12 S door, but principally C19 rebuilding; N aisle of 1815, nave 1834, chancel and vestry 1874, S aisle and chapel, 1902 and 1904. MATERIALS: mainly Portland stone ashlar, but rubble to the wall of the N aisle, slate or lead roofs. PLAN: the nave, with bell turret, and flanking aisles has a W wall taken down to a basement level well below the adjacent churchyard level, but exposed in the approach drive to the Manor House (qv); detail is varied, but the major C19 reconstructions are in rather heavy neo-Norman work. EXTERIOR: the W front has to the nave a double bell turret with cusped openings and a terminal cross, above a reset C15 three-light window in Ham stone, with casement and label moulds, with head stops of a bishop and a king. To the left is a 2-light C16 window under square label course, and to the right a 3-light Perpendicular with label to block stops. The whole is set to a high plinth, which includes a small double lancet, right, to the boiler room. The W end of the S aisle has a coped gable, with a small apex stack. The S front has a 3-light window, to block stops, left, and to carved king and queen, right; between these is the C14 porch, with coped gable and cross over a steep pointed plain outer doorway. The inner doorway is a rich Norman composition with roll, chevron and billet moulds, on column responds with a serpent capital left, and bearded head, right. The doors are of the C19. A chamfered stone eaves course under the cast-iron gutter, with square hopper-heads and downpipes fixed by splayed cleats, including one to the porch. At the W end of the aisle is a monument built into the wall under a label and serrated round arch. The monument has lettering in crude capitals, commemorating William Hopkins the Elder and his wife Mary, died 4 July, also William and Mary, son and daughter, died 22 September 1643. Beneath, in Latin, one of the favourite memento mori 'Quod Estis Furimus. Quod Sumus Eritis'. Set back at the E end of the aisle is the chapel with heavy neo-Norman doorway and adjacent small window. Here is a modillion eaves cornice, and cast-iron downpipe as before. The E end is coped, with a roll saddle above an oculus and a flush

round-arched light. The projecting chancel has a spiky oculus above a 2-light neo-Norman window. Built in to the S wall is a tablet with raised oval panel and sunk corners with fans in relief, commemorating Revd Robert Marriott, d.1819, and on the N side a very similar monument to John Furmedge, d.1879. These slabs are identical with those in the Firth monument (qv) in the churchyard. The vestry has a large neo-Norman window with scallop and billet embellishments, and is linked to a C20 church room. The N side has two 3-light windows with interlaced bars, without cusping, and a very low pitched lead roof. INTERIOR: plain whitewashed walls, with a wide nave with 3-bay neo-Norman S arcade, but carrying 4-centred arches, and 4-bay N arcade of plain semicircular arches on slender octagonal piers with thin capitals and no bases, but at the W end a length of plain wall incorporating a plain arched opening at window height; the roof has trusses with queen and king posts, and is close boarded. The S aisle has a barrel ceiling in 36 compartments with 30 carved wooden bosses. The organ at the E end blocks a richly modelled neo-Norman archway. The chancel arch has a large roll-mould and chevron on cushion caps. The N aisle has a plain plastered ceiling, and blind arch at the E end; the vestry beyond has a scissor truss roof. The chancel, on 2 steps, has a rafter roof, and to N and S there are blocked round arches, with vestry door inset to the N. The sanctuary, with rich floor tiling, is partly enlosed by a screen approx 2m high. FITTINGS: a fine C17 five-sided pulpit, pitch pine C19 pews, a C12 Purbeck marble round font with fluted bowl, on plain stem and 4 thin supports. In the vestry is a marble tablet to William Kellaway, 1839. The brass communion rail has been brought forward into the first bay of the nave. (RCHME: Dorset, South-East: London: 1970-: 359).





Listing NGR: SY6678283541

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

467728

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Inventory of Dorset II South East, (1970), 359

End of official list entry

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